Kapurthala, October 1
The Election Commission today withdrew its orders of suspension and registration of a case passed against Mr Dilraj Singh Sandhawalia, former SDM-cum-Electoral Registration Officer, for Kapurthala byelections. A fax in this regard was received in the office of Mr Rakesh Kumar Verma, Deputy Commissioner-cum-District Electoral Officer here this afternoon.
The note issued from the Chief Electoral Officer read that “in partial modification, the orders of suspension and registration of case issued earlier be revoked keeping in view reconsideration of the matter”.
The Election Commission, however, specified that departmental inquiries and proceedings should continue against Mr Sandhawalia after issuing him a charge sheet. It had also been mentioned that since the complaint was of serious nature, it called for a “major penalty”.
Mr Verma confirmed that he had received a communication in this regard. He said that he had also passed on a copy of the orders to the SSP, Mr S.K. Asthana, in this regard. He said that the order pertaining to the transfer of the SDM to Khadoor Sahib stood as it was.
The Election Commission had yesterday issued orders to Mr Verma to get a case registered against the suspended SDM, Mr Dilraj Singh Sandhawalia, under Section 32 of the Representation of Peoples Act 1950.
The case had been registered against him by the SSP late last evening. However, after today’s orders the case was withdrawn against the SDM in the evening.
The decision of the EC to revert its orders has been termed as “unfortunate” by some leaders of the Shiromani Akali Dal (Badal) as they believed that it lowered the credibility of the commission. Commenting on the issue, Mr Daljit Singh Cheema, secretary of the party, said that since the Chief Minister, Capt Amarinder Singh, was coming out with bold statements against the decision of the
EC, it seemed that the ruling party played a vital role in rollback of the orders.
The EC had been reacting to a complaint made by the SAD supremo, Mr Parkash Singh Badal, who had alleged that the Electoral Registration Officer had been receiving bogus applications for enrolment of fresh voters and also applications for deletion of bogus voters. The EC team had then taken a round to the constituency and held inquiry into the matter on September 23.
The EC officers found that the officer had received as many as 8,627 applications for enrolment of new voters but he had finally approved of the list of only 785 voters. The officer had also received 2,777 applications for deletion of votes but he cancelled just 396 voters. The officer had left as many as 3,035 applications pending for scrutiny.
