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The Karnataka High Court has stayed two FIRs registered against BJP Booth Level Agents accused of trying to delete voters' names from electoral rolls by filing bulk Form 7 objections during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in the Malleswaram Assembly Constituency.
Justice Anant Ramanath Hegde granted the interim relief on two separate writ petitions filed by the agents on Saturday, October 10, LiveLaw reported. Form 7 is used to object to the inclusion of a name in the rolls or to seek deletion of an entry.
The petitioners, GS Vasanthalakshmi and Deepak Singh R, sought the quashing of the FIRs registered at the Vyalikaval and Yeshwanthpura police stations in Bengaluru.
Vasanthalakshmi is accused of filing Form 7 objections for 778 voters across eight booths and Deepak Singh R of attempting to remove 136 voters in Booth 68 by describing the electors as "absent" or "permanently shifted", even though they allegedly continued to reside in the constituency.
The FIRs alleged that the signatures on several of the forms differed from one another. This, the complaint said, pointed to the possibility that either the petitioners or someone else had forged the signatures with the intent of furnishing false information through the applications.
Before the High Court, the petitioners argued that the offences alleged in connection with Form 7 are non-cognizable and bailable. They contended that such offences cannot be investigated by the police without an order from a Magistrate under Section 174(2) of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), 2023.
Accepting the plea for interim protection, the court stayed the operation of both FIRs.
Allegations of attempts to delete the names of voters en masse through Form 7 have emerged across the state in several Assembly constituencies, such as Ballari, Malleswaram, Koppa, Basavakalyan, Babaleshwar, Bhalki, Shivamogga, and Belthangady. In several instances, the Karnataka police have filed FIRs, invoking provisions of cheating and fraud in the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS).
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