Friday, April 7 2006 19:52 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: Three persons, including a Kolkata voter, today (Apr 07, 2006) moved the Supreme Court seeking countermanding of elections to 35 Lok Sabha constituencies in West Bengal for alleged irregularities committed at the behest of CPI(M) during the 2004 general elections.

In the petition Dinesh Trivedi, a resident of Bally Ganj, circular Road, Kolkata, sought direction to the Union Home Ministry to publish all reports of Election Observers and 88 reports of State Chief Electoral Officer Afzal Amanullah, including his final report about 'serious irregularities' in the conduct of 2004 Lok Sabha polls.

Two other petitioners are Manubhai Shah of Ahmedabad-based Consumer Education and Research Society and Bhaskar Rao of Centre of Media Studies, New Delhi.

The petition was mentioned by advocate P H Parekh before a Bench of Justice Ruma Pal and Justice Dalveer Bhandari which said let the matter come up for hearing on April 17 in the usual course.

The petitioners alleged that serious irregularities were committed by the CPI(M) during the 2004 general elections which were reported to the Union Home ministry.

They asked the court to call for the information about the action taken report and direct the centre to accept and implement the recommendations made in the Amanullah Report.

The petitioners sought direction to the Union Ministry of Home to take steps to ensure that the irregularities pointed out by Amanullah were not repeated in any future elections.

The petitioners also drew the court's attention to certain news items published in two leading English dailies which termed Amanullah's report as 'explosive'.