NGO Union moves HC over postal ballots not being issued to poll officials

Kochi: Kerala NGO Union has approached high court with a petition alleging that a large number of govt officers assigned to election duty have not been issued postal ballot papers to cast their votes.The union primarily seeks a directive to the Election Commission (EC) to immediately make postal ballot papers available at all designated election facilitation centres and to extend the deadline for such officers to cast their votes, even beyond the polling date. When the matter was taken up on Wednesday morning, a bench of Justice Bechu Kurian Thomas recorded EC's submission that it would ensure that postal ballots are provided to voters on election duty, provided that a list of such persons who have not received the ballots is communicated to the nodal officers at the voter facilitation centres at the earliest, and not later than 2pm. The court accordingly adjourned the matter for further consideration in the post-lunch session.During the post-lunch hearing, EC informed court that no such list had been communicated to the nodal officers and that only two individual applications had been received, which were addressed in accordance with the law. Meanwhile, the petitioner union submitted that 21,156 voters on election duty had not received ballot papers, despite applications being submitted pursuant to the morning order.In response, the standing counsel for EC stated that every effort had been made to provide ballot papers and that, in case of any delay, the appropriate remedy would be to initiate proceedings after the completion of the elections. EC also challenged the maintainability of the petition, while counsel for the petitioner expressed readiness to address the issue. Accordingly, the single bench adjourned the petition to April 10 for further hearing.