ECI shared voter lists with Delhi Police: Saket Gokhale

Image Courtesy:deccanherald.com

When Saket Gokhale, who describes himself as a transparency activist and investigator, shared on social media that the Election Commission of India “broke its own rules & shared photos & addresses of all residents of NE Delhi with the police after the February 2020 pogrom,” it was a serious allegation. According to Gokhale, “entire voter lists with photos were handed over illegally to enable “identification” of people.”

The tweet and the thread itself went viral quickly. The allegation that the ECI shared lists with photos is serious, as in the wrong hands such a list can be used to identify and attack vulnerable citizens. “The 1st line of the order itself admits that voter lists shared with police CANNOT contain photos. ECI broke these rules & made these full voter lists WITH PHOTOS available to police after the Delhi pogrom. This is an easy way to identify minorities living in any area,” alleged Gokhale and sought an explanation from the Election Commission of India.

He reminded the authorities that “Scores of young Muslim innocent men were picked up by police arbitrarily,” and asked if the voter lists with photos were “being shared in other places too for building a “facial recognition” database?”

The Election Commission of India was quick to “clarify” that it had “not in any way deviated from the original guidelines of 2008.” According to a note posted on the ECI website the commission had issued an Order (No. 23/SEC/2008/ERS dated 10th December, 2008) which laid down guidelines regarding sharing “electoral roll and EPIC database with various Government departments.” 

The ECI stated that it issued further instructions to the Chief Electoral Officers (CEOs) on 16 July 2020 stating, “inter alia, that the State Election Commissions (SECs) shall also not share the ER database provided by the CEOs to any other organisation/agency.”

The Guidelines of 2008 can be read here:

It added that  criminal investigations by regulatory departments/enforcement agencies fall under their own “extant Acts, Rules and guidelines, which in any case can be challenged in the Hon’ble Courts of law. In fact, the entire superstructure of the criminal justice system is erected on this. It is only when the Model Code of Conduct is enforced that Election Commission invariably takes note of any such event(s)/incident(s), which have the potential of disturbing and/or disrupting the smooth conduct of electoral process and ECI does not interfere in the day to day functioning of the regulatory departments/enforcement agencies.” 

While it seems to have distanced itself from investigations into the North East Delhi riots cases, the ECI added that if anyone raises concerns of “any particular instance which has the potential of disturbing electoral process, the Commission has the well established mechanism of seeking inputs from the CEOs, General Observers, Police Observers and Expenditure Observers during this time and necessary action is taken as per the reports of these functionaries.” 

It also seemed to have given themself a pat on the back for past cases where they state “very senior functionaries have been removed/relocated from the senior most positions in the State Governments in such eventualities,” during the last Lok Sabha /Vidhan Sabha Elections.

However, the Election Commission of India is yet to clarify if photos of voters of North-East Delhi were shared with Delhi police as revealed in an RTI response received by Saket Gokhale. It is not clear if they have denied the core allegation, apart from clarifying the procedure and the rules. The letter clearly states that “photographs of electors, as available in the electoral roll of North-East Shahdara and East Delhi districts are to be matched with those of culprits captured through CCTV and other video footage available with the investigation team of recent incidences of violence in Delhi, has directed to advise CEO Delhi to display the electoral roll along with images of electors before the investigating officer in his office. Action be taken accordingly”. 

Is this what the ECI means when they mean such data can be shared after special permission is given to concerned departments “on a case to case basis”? 

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