A PIL has been moved in the Supreme Court seeking a court-monitored SIT supervised by a retired judge to probe allegations of electoral roll manipulation in the wake of Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi’s “vote-theft” claims.

The petition has been filed by Supreme Court advocate Rohit Pandey, who alleged that upon a perusal of the voter list, it had been found that in the Mahadevapura Assembly seat in the Bengaluru Central Lok Sabha seat, it had come to light that approximately 10,652 voters across booths had identical particulars such as house number and father’s name.

Apart from the Mahadevapura constituency, the petitioner has alleged that in the four months between the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and the Vidhan Sabha polls in Maharashtra, around 39 lakh new voters had been added to the electoral roll, whereas in the preceding five years, only around 50 lakh voters had been added.

Such a sudden and disproportionate increase raises a serious question about the transparency of the commission in the process of adding names to the voter list, he said.

“Prima facie, it has also been found that in constituency Chandrapur-71, booth number 350, approximately 80 voters are registered at the same house, where it has been discovered that no one is presently residing. This raises serious concerns regarding the transparency of the election procedure conducted by the commission…,” Pandey’s petition says.

The petition adds: “It is pertinent to mention that the jurisdiction of this court arises in as much as the voter list of the aforesaid constituency could be obtained from the commission only after considerable effort by the leader of the Opposition (Rahul Gandhi) and the prima facie errors have been detected therein.”

“Further, the names of voters are found to be common in various parts of the country, and therefore, the interference of this court is necessitated for safeguarding the sanctity of electoral rolls across the nation,” it goes on.

The petitioner urged the court to constitute a special investigation team under the supervision of the court, headed by a former Supreme Court judge, to inquire into the allegations of large-scale electoral roll manipulation in Bengaluru Central and other constituencies.