New Delhi: A plea has been moved in the Supreme Court claiming that during the December 5 bypoll in the Rampur assembly constituency, in Uttar Pradesh, police allegedly prevented voters in Muslim-dominated areas from voting.
Advocate Sulaiman Mohd. Khan mentioned the matter before a bench headed by Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, alleging that in Rampur Sadar Assembly constituency, police beat up the voters and they were confined to their homes during the bypoll.
Khan claimed that he is a voter in the constituency and witnessed police atrocities himself, as he sought urgent listing of the petition for hearing. “The police, who are protectors of the Constitution, have stopped thousands and thousands of voters from voting, beating them black and blue. Broken heads,” he said.
The bench told him that elections in a democracy have its own sanctity and this process cannot be stalled and asked him to again mention his plea on Thursday morning. The lawyer gave details of the incident, which allegedly occurred two days ago during the polling for by-election in Rampur Sadar. The bench queried the lawyer about the day of the poll and also about the schedule of counting of votes.
As Khan replied that counting will happen on Thursday, the bench said it cannot pass any order like this and asked the lawyer to mention the matter on Thursday morning and asked for his petition. The mentioning happened when the bench was rising for the day.
“By using every unconstitutional means to stop voters from Muslim-dominated areas/ city area from voting as traditionally they vote against the BJP,” said the plea.
According to Khan’s petition, the voting fell to 33.94 percent due to this incident and argued that rights under Article 14, 19 and 21 were violated. The petition prayed that the by-election be declared null and void.
(IANS)
