Nagpur: The Nagpur bench of the Bombay high court on Tuesday allowed an amendment to a petition seeking to declare the Nagpur division graduates’ constituency election invalid and order a fresh poll. It permitted the petitioner to pursue the case as an election petition under the Representation of the People Act, 1951.A division bench comprising Justices Urmila Joshi-Phalke and Raj Wakode directed the petitioner to provide copies of the amended petition to all respondents within two days. Election Commission of India (ECI), State Election Commission (SEC) and the Nagpur divisional commissioner have been asked to file their replies by Oct 30.The case was initiated by Sachin Kalbande, who had earlier sought a halt to the election process, alleging that eligible voters were excluded from the final electoral roll. With polling now completed, he sought permission to amend the original petition and convert it into an election petition under the 1951 law.The amended petition alleges that 98,782 applications for voter registration were received after Sept 22, 2026, and remained pending scrutiny. The petitioner contends that the final electoral roll was not published in time, depriving eligible applicants of an opportunity to raise objections when their names were omitted.The petition filed through counsel I K Daudsare also alleges that some voters’ names appeared more than once in the final list under different serial numbers. Additional govt pleader advocate Sangeeta Jachak represented the state, while Nirja Choubey appeared for ECI.
