The Kerala police, on Tuesday, March 24, issued legal notices to several journalists and political commentators threatening them to remove the ECI’s “erroneous” letter from their social media accounts, saying that the continued circulation of the document undermines the “integrity and transparency” of the ECI. The Kerala Police is currently under the Election Commission of India, since the Model Code of Conduct is in place.
A day earlier, a political row erupted after it was noticed that the Election Commission of India (ECI) issued an official document, with the Kerala BJP unit’s seal on it.
However, the ECI claimed that the incident was “purely a clerical error”, which was identified and rectified immediately.
The ECI clarified that the BJP Kerala Unit had recently approached the CEO’s office seeking clarification on the 2019 guidelines regarding the publication of criminal antecedents of candidates. And along with their request, the party submitted a photocopy of the original 2019 directive. “The party's seal was present on that specific copy provided by them. Due to an oversight, the office failed to notice the party symbol on the submitted document and inadvertently redistributed it to other political parties as part of the requested clarification,” the ECI said in a statement.
Those who shared the document were issued orders by the police to remove the content under section 79(3)(b) of IT Act 2000 & 3(1)(d) of IT rules 2021.
The police claim that sharing of the post amounted to “ blatantly insulting” the Election Commission of India” and also undermines “communal harmony.”
“The post in question is not only a direct affront to a respected national institution but also poses a serious threat to public order by inciting division and hostility. Further, there is an urgent need for the immediate removal of all digital content featuring a superseded 2019 document that inadvertently contained a political party's seal due to a clerical error, which has since been rectified,” police said.
They added, “The continued circulation of this retracted material is being used to spread false allegations, thereby undermining the integrity and transparency of the Election Commission. Such misinformation poses a grave threat to public order, as it has the potential to incite division and hostility among supporters of different political parties, possibly leading to serious law and order issues across the state.”
Police said that to prevent further “harm” to the electoral process and to ensure communal harmony, all media outlets and digital platforms are hereby directed to cease the distribution of this erroneous document and remove it immediately from their archives and social media accounts.
Failing to remove the content would lead to abatement of the law, police claimed.