The petition has been filed by Kannada litterateur Devanooru Mahadeva, noted historian/biographer Ramachandra Guha, Major General (Retd) SG Vombatkere and eminent Kannada scholar Sabiha Bhoomigowda.

A public interest litigation (PIL) seeking extension of the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voters list filed in the Karnataka High Court has been posted for hearing on Tuesday. A division bench comprising Chief Justice Vibhu Bakhru and Justice KS Hemalekha adjourned the hearing to enable the parties to submit in detail the Apex Court judgement on the issue.

The petition has been filed by Kannada litterateur Devanooru Mahadeva, noted historian/biographer Ramachandra Guha, Major General (Retd) SG Vombatkere and eminent Kannada scholar Sabiha Bhoomigowda.

Appearing for the petitioners, senior advocate Vikram Huilgol said that there is no clarity regarding the category mentioned as ASDDO - the Absentee/Shifted/Dead/Duplicate and Others - pertaining to deletion of an electoral from the rolls. He pointed out that there is more concern about the category "others" as there is no definition provided, either in the guidelines published by the Election Commission of India (ECI) or the written instructions provided to the electors and BLOs.

The advocate said that the Apex Court (in Association for Democratic Reforms vs Election Commission of India case) upheld the ECI’s power to conduct the SIR, holding that deletions did not violate Rule 21A of the Registration of Electors Rules, since notice and hearing were preserved in substance. Insofar as Karnataka, where an elector is flagged under either category, the notice communicates only the fact of exclusion, and not the ground for it. Where an elector is flagged under the "Others" sub-category or as a "logical discrepancy" without disclosure of the criteria applied, any subsequent notice affords no meaningful opportunity to respond, since the elector is not told what must be shown or rebutted, the petition stated.

The petition further stated that due to certain deficiencies the exercise being conducted under a timeline appears to exceed the operational capacity of the manpower deployed. The petition stated that since the enumeration phase is due to close August 8, and the draft electoral roll is due to be published on August 17, the timeline for each phase of the SIR in Karnataka may be extended to three months.