Plea seeks Supreme Court intervention over INDIA bloc leaders entering court's filing counter

Senior Advocate and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Gaurav Bhatia on Tuesday mentioned a plea seeking the Supreme Court’s intervention over Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) bloc leaders entering the Court’s filing counter on Monday.

Bhatia described the incident as a “sad incident” while seeking permission to mention a petition filed by lawyers.

“Permission, may I mention a petition that has been filed by advocates regarding the sad incident that happened within the precincts of the Supreme Court?” he asked.

A Bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana, however, asked Bhatia to mention the matter on Wednesday, after he informed the Court that he had just received the diary number.

“Is it on the list?” asked Justice Bagchi.

“I have the diary number now,” replied Bhatia.

“You may mention it tomorrow, after the list,” said Justice Bagchi.

The petition relates to the events surrounding the INDIA bloc’s march to the Supreme Court on Monday to file a petition against alleged irregularities in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. Opposition leaders, including Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi and Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, had sought to approach the Court amid police barricades.

Gandhi, Kharge and nine other opposition leaders subsequently filed a petition in the Supreme Court challenging the SIR exercise and alleging irregularities in the deletion of voters' names. The petition seeks, among other reliefs, an independent audit of voter deletions and disclosure of records relating to the Election Commission's decisions.

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