The draft list will be posted at public places so that people can easily inspect the list and raise objections or make claims, if they have any.

The commission has completed the work of the fresh list, ignoring the High Court's January 4 directives for revising the existing roll, but has yet to finalise the date for publication of the final roll.

"The Election Commission will fix the date for publishing the final voter list at an appropriate time," Acting Secretary to the EC Secretariat Mohammad Zakoria told reporters at his office yesterday.

"We are not ignoring the court directives in preparing the voter list," he claimed, replying to a query about the appeal scheduled for hearing on May 14.

The draft roll, which is likely to have over one crore new voters, will be on display at the offices of local government bodies, cantonment board, and educational institutions that are used as polling stations.

"We are urging people to inspect the draft list and submit objections if any. Besides, someone whose name is not on the list can apply to be registered as a voter," the acting secretary to the EC secretariat said.

Objections and claims will have to be submitted by May 21. Over 500 revising authorities will resolve those by June 6 and the resolutions will be compiled by June 25.

"The commission does not have any mechanism to detect fake or ghost voters. But if such allegations are levelled, we must take measures in response to those," Zakoria observed

Officials at the EC Secretariat said the number of voters in the new roll will rise by 14 per cent meaning 1.1 crore more than the existing one.

After revisions ahead of different local body polls, the current roll prepared in 2000 had 7.74 crore voters.