Lok Sabha elections 2024 | No special polls for Coimbatore: Madras High Court

Chennai: The Madras High Court on Tuesday dismissed a petition seeking direction to the Election Commission of India (ECI) to conduct special polls for the Coimbatore Lok Sabha constituency to enable people whose names were not included in the voters’ list to vote in parliamentary elections.

The first bench of Chief Justice Sanjay V Gangapurwala and Justice G Chandrasekharan held that it cannot pass orders after the elections while observing that petitioner R. Suthanthira Kannan, a native of Coimbatore and who works as a doctor in Australia, had failed to to check the draft and final electoral list published by the ECI.

Kannan, who traveled to Coimbatore from Australia to vote in the April 19 Lok Sabha elections, could not find his name in the electoral rolls. Last week, he moved the Supreme Court, arguing that his name was included in the voters’ list in 2019 and 2021, and seeking a special poll for people like him whose names have been omitted from the voters’ list.

The doctor also argued that disenfranchisement amounts to a violation of fundamental rights guaranteed by Article 19 of the Constitution and submitted a list of 61 names found to be missing from the electoral list.

In the ruling, the court states that the elections have already taken place and that ECI’s counsel stated that the final list was published in January this year. “The provisional list has already been published earlier. The petitioner has not objected to the provisional or final list. In view of the filing and facts of the case, no orders can be passed now,” the judges added.

The petition came close on the heels of BJP candidate K Annamalai from Coimbatore constituency claiming that names of over 1 lakh people have been removed from the voters’ list. Such an allegation was also leveled by the BJP’s candidate from Chennai (Central), Vinoj P. Selvam, immediately after the elections were concluded on April 19.

BJP cadres and Annamalai supporters also staged a protest in Coimbatore against the removal of their names from the voters’ list.