Supreme Court on Bhima Koregaon Arrests, NRC and EVMs

The Supreme Court heard three important matters today: the pleas of the activists accused of a Maoist plot and instigating the Bhima Koregaon violence; the progress of the National Register of Citizens (NRC); and the petition filed in connection to irregularities in the Madhya Pradesh elections.

Bhima Koregaon Related Arrests

The arguments in the Bhima Koregaon- related arrests lasted two sessions and will be resumed tomorrow. The petitioners challenged the actions of the police leading up to the arrests and following the arrests. They alleged that the entire investigation was mala fide and that there was no basis on which the persons could be arrested. They alluded to the case diary, wherein they claimed that there was no mention of a larger conspiracy. They also questioned the police’s actions regarding ‘leaking’ the letters to the press. The petitioners questioned the veracity of the letters, as they had not been forensically examined.

On August 28 this year, serial raids and arrests took place across the country. These had followed arrests in June this year. The grounds on which these arrests were made was that there was a Maoist plot to cause chaos and kill the prime minister. The police sought to link the arrested activists to the Elgar Parishad and the Bhima Koregaon violence that followed. Though the Elgar Parishad had been organised by former Judges, and the violence was directly linked to Hindu right-wing Maratha groups, the police chose to see a ‘Maoist’ conspiracy.

National Register of Citizens

The Supreme Court has ordered that the process for filing claims and objections regarding the NRC should commence from September 25 and remain open for 60 days. The Court also directed that the basis of the claims and objections should be on the 10 identity documents specified by the Court in its Order on September 5. The matter will be taken up again on October 23.

The NRC has recently come under fire from various quarters, all of whom appear to want to gain political mileage. On the one hand, the Trinamool Congress has alleged that the exercise is anti-Bengali and specifically anti-Muslim, while claiming that the majority of persons left outfit this description. The All Cachar Karimjang Hailakandi Students’ Association has alleged that the process was flawed since the districts bordering Bangladesh in the Western part of Assam have had high levels of acceptance. They have claimed that illegal immigrants have had their names entered in the NRC.

Transparency of Elections

The Election Commission of India (ECI) took umbrage to the petition filed by Kamal Nath, a Congress leader. The ECI told the Supreme Court that the Congress party cannot dictate electoral reforms to the commission. The ECI stated that a separate representation had been made by Rajya Sabha MP Vivek K Tankha in the commission, and had been dealt with. In this regard, the present petition assumes the nature of forcing the commission to discharge its duties in a particular way. The ECI maintained that representations could be made to it, but the final decision regarding implementation rests with the commission.

Nath had filed a petition on August 17 this year alleging irregularities in the way the Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) functioned during the Madhya Pradesh elections. He had prayed for selecting at least 10 per cent of the EVMs randomly from all the polling stations to verify the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT). As well as publishing voter lists in text format, prohibiting voters’ names being deleted without intimation to political parties. He also prayed for fresh guidelines to be issued for VVPAT operation.