THE HON’BLE THE CHIEF JUSTICE SRI APARESH KUMAR SINGH AND THE HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE G.M.MOHIUDDIN

ORDER:

Heard Sri Dama Sheshadri Naidu, learned Senior Counsel representing Sri P. Mohith Rao, learned counsel for petitioners, and Sri Avinash Desai, learned Senior Counsel representing Sri Kopal Sharraf, learned counsel for respondent Nos.1 to 3, and also learned Government Pleader for General Administration Department appears for respondent No.4.

2. Petitioner No.1 claims to be a voter and contesting candidate for Member of Legislative Assembly (MLA) in the bye-election of 61-Jubilee Hills Assembly Constituency, as per the schedule of election announced by the Election Commission of India (ECI) vide Memo No.2080/Elecs.D/2025-7 dated 06.10.2025. Petitioner No.2 is a Working President of a political party to which petitioner No.1 belongs.

3. The bye-election has been notified on 13.10.2025 and the last date for nominations is 21.10.2025. As per the Press Note released by ECI, the process of continuous updation of electoral rolls would continue till the date of filing nominations with respect to the proximate qualifying date in respect of the applications received till ten (10) days before the last date of filing nominations.

4. The petitioners made representations to respondent No.2 - Chief Electoral Officer, Telangana State, Election Commission of India, Hyderabad, on 13.10.2025 and 14.10.2025 respectively, alleging electoral malpractices and giving reference to the specific instances of multiple registrations; sudden and unverified bulk additions in certain booths. According to them, these materials collected from their field cadres estimate that 12,000 ‘outsider’ individuals have been improperly and illegally registered as voters in 61-Jubilee Hills Assembly Constituency through the “backdoor”. They requested ECI to take prompt decisive action to preserve the sanctity of the electoral process.

5. Learned Senior Counsel for the petitioners specifically referred to Section 23 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950 (for short ‘the Act’) which relates to inclusion of names in electoral rolls and sub-section (3) thereof reads as under:

“No amendment, transposition or deletion of any entry shall be made under section 22 and no direction for the inclusion of a name in the electoral roll of a constituency shall be given under this section, after the last date for making nominations for an election in that constituency or in the parliamentary constituency within which that constituency is comprised and before the completion of that election.”

He has also referred to the decisions rendered in the cases of Lakshmi Charan Sen and others v. A.K.M. Hassan Uzzaman and others, (1985) 4 SCC 689; Indrajit Barua and others v. Election Commission of India and others, (1985) 4 SCC 722, and Election Commission of India v. Ashok Kumar and others, (2000) 8 SCC 216 and also order dated 14.08.2025 passed by the Hon’ble Supreme Court in Writ Petition (Civil)

No.640 of 2025.

Paragraph 28 of Lakshmi Charan Sen (supra) is extracted as under:

“28. We have expressed the view that preparation and revision of electoral rolls is a continuous process, not connected with any particular election. It may be difficult, consistently with that view, to hold that preparation and revision of electoral rolls is a part of the ‘election’ within the meaning of Article 329(b). Perhaps, as stated in Halsbury in the passage extracted in Ponnuswami, the facts of each individual case may have to be considered for determining the question whether any particular stage can be said to be a part of the election process in that case. In that event, it would be difficult to formulate a proposition which will apply to all cases alike.”

(emphasis supplied)

He has referred to paragraph 12 of Indrajit Barua (supra), the relevant part of which is also extracted as under:

“12. From the materials placed by the parties and the Election Commission, we have come to the conclusion that the Election Commi