BPP poll PIL

As the countdown to the Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP) trusteeship elections neared, the Bombay High Court on September 25, 2008 heard a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by Jamshed Irani and Hormazd Daneshwar alleging poll malpractices, reported The Times of India (TOI) in its edition of September 26, 2008. The petitioners told a division bench that names of hundreds of voters had been mentioned twice, even thrice in the BPP’s general register. The bench, comprising Chief Justice Swatanter Kumar and Justice A. P. Deshpande, has given the BPP a fortnight to file its reply and said its final order would be binding on the Punchayet, as per the report.

The two petitioners alleged that the electoral rolls prepared by the existing trustees show a "deliberate duplication” of voters. In many cases, individual voters’ names have been repeated thrice, but they bear different addresses and electoral roll numbers. This, the petitioners allege, "causes reasonable apprehensions in the mind of the Parsi community that the election will not be free and fair and is likely to be so engineered that the results may wrongfully favor the two sitting trustees…who are themself (sic) conducting this election and are also standing for reelection.”

The PIL also states that with the elections spread over 21 days and the finger marking ink lasting for not more than five days, the electorate fears that the duplication was deliberately done by the trustees. The PIL further said that some builders who are standing as candidates are seeking a piece of the plum property that the BPP controls and that unless the Court gives proper directions regarding security of ballot papers and ballot boxes in safe custody of a Court appointed officer, the trustees are likely to rig the elections. The PIL has asked the Court to order the BPP trustees to remove the duplicate and triplicate names from the electoral rolls, appoint an officer to supervise the elections, order the election process to be completed within two days or such other period as the Court may direct, and place the ballot boxes under police security until the election results are declared.