Courts orders verification of voters' birthdates
Source: Chronicle News Service
Imphal, March 03 2022:
A division bench of the High Court of Manipur has directed the authority concerned to conduct a verification of the birthdates of the young voters in Heirok AC.
The division bench of Chief Justice Sanjay Kumar and Justice MV Muralidhar directed for production of two documents verifying the birthdates of the young voters.
The documents could be passport, Class X certificate, Aadhaar card, Election ID or any document specifying the date and year of birth.
According to a petition filed to the High Court, many underage children are included in the voter lists for the 2nd phase of the elections to be conducted in Heirok.
The court after examining the record observed that the issue had been brought up not only by the petitioner but by booth level officers as well.
The BLOs in their report also included records of polling station 33/21, 33/23 and 33/24, wherein the names of 16 underage children were found in the revised electoral roll.
As such, there is high probability of many more underage voters included in the revised electoral roll.
Prior to the Election Commission of India (ECI) announcing the schedule of the 12th Manipur Legislative Assembly Election on January 8, the final electoral roll was published on January 5.The revised electoral roll was then published on January 11 but no time was given for objection.
As such, the High Court directed ECI to take up the necessary action to rectify the matter in the constituency.
It further directed the authority concerned to organised mass publicity informing the voters who have attained 18 years of age to produce two documents for proving their age.
The authorities must arrange a separate counter for verifying the ages of the voters, but must not prevent the eligible voters from exercising their right to vote.