Niticentral:
New Delhi: Thursday, 30 July 2015.
The Central Information Commission has directed
the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of Delhi to prepare a set of guidelines that
needs to be followed before deleting names from the voters' list and inform the
electors of the prosposed deletion giving opportunity to present their case.
The Commission directed the CEO to pay a
compensation of Rs 10,000 to one Sumit whose name was deleted from the voters' list without him
being informed even though he did not change his residential address.
He could not vote in 2015 Assembly election here.
"The
voter has a right to know, first that his name was deleted, then the reasons
for the decision to delete his name from the voters' list.
"Such an
arbitrary decision and denial of information even after deletion, followed by
non-response to RTI request for that deletion would certainly amount to denial
of very significant constitutional and statutory right to vote and right to
information under the RTI Act," Information Commissioner Sridhar Acharyulu
said.
Issuing a
show cause notice to the CPIO of the CEO's office asking why a penalty should
not be imposed for failure to furnish the information, Acharyulu also directed
it to inform the appellant reasons for deleting his name from the voters' list
and if any inquiry was conducted into the matter.
He also
directed the CEO office to carry out an inquiry into the matter (if no such
inquiry took place) and to inform the appellant what action has been proposed
to be taken against officer responsible for the deletion of the name.
"Not
only the appellant, each voter whose valid voting right is violated by
arbitrary decision of the officer without communicating reasons and giving an
opportunity to represent why his name should be removed, is entitled to such
compensation if he was not allowed to vote on that ground, and restoration of
voting rights within reasonable time," he said.
.JPG)
.JPG)
