The Uttarakhand High Court on Monday admitted six more petitions alleging tampering of EVMs in different constituencies in the recently-concluded Assembly elections in the state and issued notices to the state election commission and winners of these seats among others.
The High Court had last week ordered sealing of the EVMs of Vikasnagar constituency in Dehradun district while hearing a similar petition.
After last week's order, six more election petitions were filed there seeking the sealing and investigation of the EVMs of six more constituencies.
Raj Kumar, Ambrish Kumar, Prabhu Lal Bahuguna, Godavri Thapli, Vikram Singh Negi and Charan Singh have filed the petition to seal the EVMs of Rajpur Road (Dehradun), Bhel Ranipur (Haridwar), Raipur, Mussoorie, Pratapnagar and Haridwar Rural constituencies respectively.
The single bench of Justice Servesh Kumar Gupta issued notices to the winning candidates of these constituencies along with the state election commission.The matter is to be listed after six weeks.
On April 27, while hearing a petition by Congress candidate of the Vikasnagar constituency, the High Court had directed the judicial magistrate to seal and seize the EVM machines "in his custody"
In the February assembly polls, BJP's Munna Singh Chauhan had defeated former cabinet minister and Congress nominee Navprabhat by 6,418 votes.
On the petition filed by Navprabhat, Justice Shailesh Kumar Gupta asked the Election Commission, its state unit, the state chief secretary, the returning officer of Vikasnagar and Chauhan to file their replies within six weeks.
The petition alleged there was tampering and manipulation of the EVMs at Vikasnagar during the February 15 election.
