The petitioners have not got any relief from the Bombay High Court in the case of removal of names of voters from the list during the ongoing SIR process in Maharashtra. The court has refused to put an interim stay on the process of deleting names from the voter list. This petition was filed against SIR on behalf of Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) Youth President Sagar Ramesh Gavai. In the petition, there are allegations of ignoring the rules during door-to-door verification and arbitrarily removing the names of voters.
During the hearing in the court, senior lawyer Ashutosh Kumbhakoni, appearing for the Election Commission, cited the old interim instructions of the Supreme Court. He said that the Supreme Court is conducting a comprehensive hearing in this entire case. There will be further hearing on this on October 8.
On the other hand, senior leader and lawyer Prakash Ambedkar, appearing on behalf of the petitioner, has opposed it. He argued that the old order was only related to Bihar elections, whereas his petition is different. Prakash Ambedkar appealed to the court that at least such an order should be given for the voters of Maharashtra that their names should not be deleted. He has demanded from the court to stop this.
High Court clarified its stand
The Bombay High Court bench has raised questions on parallel proceedings. Since the Supreme Court is already considering this case, it would not be right for the High Court to hear it parallelly and give orders. The bench remarked that how would it look to take such a step when the hearing is going on in the Supreme Court? The court said that the date of October 8 is coming. In such a situation, there is no need to rush into the matter. However, on the appeal of the Election Commission, the court has postponed the hearing of this case for 3 weeks. Now the hearing of this case will take place around October 12.