The Kerala High Court in an interim order on Monday asked the Election Commission to ensure that a voter in the state votes only once.
The High Court’s interim order came after it heard the petition of opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala.
Chennithala approached the court seeking its immediate intervention regarding the ‘fraudulent’ voters’ list for the ensuing Kerala Assembly election.
The Kerala Assembly election 2021 will be held in a single phase on April 6 and the counting of votes will take place on May 2, 2021.
When this petition came up last week, the court directed the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of Kerala to come with a detailed explanation on this serious issue, says a media report.
The Chief Electoral Officer on Monday informed the High Court that they were in the process of seriously looking into this issue and a clear picture regarding the matter would come up by Monday evening.
Following this, the court passed an interim order asking the election officials to ensure that a voter be allowed to vote only once.
The Chief Electoral Officer on Monday informed the court that they were in the process of seriously looking into this issue and a clear picture on this would emerge by Monday evening.
The court later passed an interim order asking the election officials to ensure that a voter be allowed to vote only once and posted the case for further hearing on Tuesday.
Chennithala in his petition demanded all such people, who have multiple identity cards, should not be allowed to vote and action under the Indian Penal Code and the Peoples Representation Act be taken against all the government officials, who played a role in issuing such fake cards.
Chennithala’s public interest litigation, according to him, was a forced one as he had approached the chief electoral officer, in the state five times with a complaint that there are over four lakh fraudulent voters in the 140 Assembly constituencies with their names in multiple Assembly constituencies.