Booth agents not responsible for verifying all details in SIR forms: Delhi HC

The Delhi High Court on Thursday ruled that booth-level agents appointed by political parties cannot be held responsible for verifying every detail provided in enumeration forms during the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls.

Justice Amit Bansal held that a booth-level agent could be made liable only for information that was possible for the agent to verify, such as whether the photograph on an enumeration form matched the elector’s identity.

“In the opinion of this court, BLA can only be made liable in terms of Section 31 of the Representation of the People Act for information that can be verified by the BLA, i.e., the photograph on the enumeration form matches with the identity of the elector,” the court said.

Section 31 provides for imprisonment of up to one year, a fine or both for making false declarations concerning the preparation, revision or correction of electoral rolls.

The ruling came on a petition filed by Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee president Devender Yadav and the chairman of the party’s booth management committee.

They had challenged a requirement directing booth-level agents to submit a personal undertaking certifying that they had verified all the information contained in enumeration forms.

The petitioners argued that neither the Representation of the People Act nor the Registration of Electors Rules authorised the Election Commission to seek such an undertaking from political party representatives.

According to the petition, Section 23 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, assigns the responsibility for including names in electoral rolls to the Electoral Registration Officer following proper verification.

It argued that the prescribed verification process must be carried out by statutory officers and could not be transferred to private individuals or representatives of political parties.

Requiring booth-level agents to personally certify every detail in an enumeration form amounted to an unlawful delegation of a statutory function, the petitioners contended.

With IANS inputs