Karnataka high court declines to entertain PIL seeking SIR extension

Bengaluru: The high court Tuesday declined to entertain a public interest litigation seeking three-month extension of the ongoing SIR.A division bench of Chief Justice Vibhu Bakhru and Justice KS Hemalekha observed in its order: “At this stage, we find the present petition is premature and, therefore, we decline to entertain it. We also note the contention advanced by Election Commission of India (ECI) that petitions raising similar issues are pending before Supreme Court’s consideration. For this reason also, it’s not necessary for this court to examine issues raised at the present stage.”The PIL was filed by Kannada writer Devanooru Mahadeva, writer/historian Ramachandra Guha, Maj Gen (retd) SG Vombatkere and Kannada scholar Sabiha Bhoomigowda. The petitioners had sought extension of the exercise by three months and directions to ECI to operationalise functional voter facilitation centres in every polling booth.