NEW DELHI: Congress’ Rahul Gandhi‘s insistence that EC share a machine-readable digital copy of the Maharashtra electoral roll appears to have overlooked an important aspect – a similar request made by senior Congress neta Kamal Nath before SC was rejected in 2018, reports Bharti Jain. Interestingly, arguing the case on behalf of the petitioner was none other than Abhishek Manu Singhvi, now member of Congress’s Empowered Action Group of Leaders and Experts (EAGLE) that monitors the conduct of elections.A two-judge bench had in its ruling on Oct 12, 2018, in the case ‘Kamal Nath vs EC and Others’, found “force in the submission of EC (that) clause 11.2.2.2 of the election manual only uses the expression; text mode”. As per the clause, the draft roll must be put on the chief electoral officer’s (CEO) website in a text mode and no photographs shall appear against details of electors. The bench had said a draft roll in text mode was already supplied to the petitioner ahead of the 2018 polls in MP. Clause 11.2.2.2 “nowhere says that the draft electoral roll has to be put up on the CEO’s website in a ‘searchable PDF’. Therefore, the petitioner cannot claim, as a right, that the draft electoral roll should be placed on the website in a ‘searchable mode’. It has only to be in ‘text mode’ and it is so provided,” said the bench comprising Justices A K Sikri and Ashok Bhushan.EC sources on Thursday cited this verdict to underline that the Congress’s demand is not new and forms part of its strategy for well over eight years. “The demand … is not tenable within the contours of the prevailing legal framework,” said an EC functionary.
