New Delhi: Delhi High Court Thursday held that booth-level agents (BLAs) of political parties cannot be liable for false details in enumeration forms during Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.Justice Amit Bansal said BLAs were liable only for verifiable information like the elector’s photograph. “BLA can only be made liable in terms of Section 31 of Representation of 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 judge said.The court added that a BLA could not be in a position to verify all information on an enumeration form. “The said information would be exclusively within the knowledge of the elector concerned.”Section 31 states that making false declarations with respect to the preparation, revision or correction of an electoral roll is punishable with imprisonment for a term which may extend to one year, or with fine, or with both.The order came on a petition by Delhi Congress president Devender Yadav and the chairman of its booth management committee. The petitioners challenged the mandate requiring all party BLAs to give a personal undertaking certifying they have personally verified all details in the enumeration forms in connection with SIR.Since the information is within the elector’s exclusive knowledge and the BLA’s role is limited to providing assistance, he could not be made to personally authenticate all such details, they argued.Election Commission of India argued that it permitted all registered parties to appoint their own BLAs to participate in the process of SIR to dispel any impression of supporters of any specific party being deliberately left out by booth-level officers (BLOs) in a partisan manner.The court, however, noted that under the SIR framework, the responsibility for verification and undertaking rested with the BLOs and there was no justification to insist that BLAs furnish such personal undertakings.Though BLAs would have full responsibility for the forms of dead or shifted voters as these are filled by them based on information gathered by them, they cannot be held liable for the unverifiable information, HC said.
