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New Delhi: The Supreme Court has adjourned \u2013 till after the Lok Sabha election \u2013 pleas seeking release of voter turnout data, including votes polled and\/or rejected, within 48 hours of end of polling at each booth.<\/p>\n
The pleas sought directions to the Election Commission to compile and publish this data on its website after each phase, beginning with the next round of voting for the 2024 Lok Sabha election.<\/p>\n
A vacation bench of the court reasoned an immediate ruling could \u201coverburden the Election Commission during polls\u2026 by changing the process midway\u201d. The bench also noted five of seven voting phases had been completed and that the results were due in less than two weeks, on June 4.<\/p>\n
Perhaps more significantly, Justice S Narasimha and Sanjay Karol pointed out the interim appeal by the current petitioner \u2013 the Association for Democratic Reforms \u2013 was similar to a writ petition by the Trinamool\u2019s Mahua Moitra in 2019, which wanted the EC to \u201cformulate a protocol mandating reporting of Form 17C\u2026 within 48 hours (for a Lok Sabha election)\u201d, which is unresolved.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are simpliciter (directly) adjourning\u2026 (and) giving one observation as to why relief cannot be granted at this stage,\u201d the court said, stating also that this did not constitute a dismissal of the pleas.<\/p>\n
\u201cPrima facie we are not inclined to grant relief at this stage, in view of similarity of prayers\u2026 granting interim relief would mount to final relief. Therefore, we list these applications after the vacation\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat is the nexus between 2019 and 2024 applications? Why didn\u2019t you file a separate writ petition?\u201d the court questioned ADR, insisting it would not intervene in the middle of an election.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis application will be heard after the election\u2026 in-between an election, hands off! We cannot interrupt (the electoral process)\u2026 we are also responsible citizens,\u201d Justice Datta said.<\/p>\n
Form 17C Hearing In Supreme Court
Today\u2019s hearing began with senior advocate Maninder Singh, arguing for the Election Commission, criticising the petition as a \u201cclassic case of abuse of law\u201d and said it was only meant to \u201cerode the integrity of the election\u201d. \u201cThese are false allegations\u2026 done only on apprehensions,\u201d Mr Singh said.<\/p>\n
Mr Singh questioned opposition leaders and political activists\u2019 claim of five to six per cent discrepancy in voter data released by the poll panel on the day of voting and updated figures released days later; in the case of the first phase this updated data was released after 11 days.<\/p>\n
Several opposition leaders, including Mahua Moitra and the Congress\u2019 Pawan Khera, have red-flagged what they claim as possible vote fraud \u2013 i.e., there is concern the increased number of votes shown after polling could be illegally added to the tally of any one political party.<\/p>\n
However, Mr Singh told the court, \u201cThis is false\u2026 data will differ only by one or two per cent.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the last hearing the EC had argued there is no legal mandate requiring release of Form 17C data to a \u201cgeneral entity\u201d, and that this information had only to be released to the polling officer in a booth.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, senior advocate Abhishek Singhvi, representing Ms Moitra, had argued that even if the petition had travelled from 2019 to 2024 it should be heard as it deals with a serious issue.<\/p>\n
The court then noted that even if it were to consider and rule on the petitions, it had to \u201cvery conscious of the ground reality\u201d. \u201cTomorrow (May 25) is the sixth phase\u2026 this particular compliance would require manpower (and) we feel this could be heard after the vacation,\u201d Justice Datta said.<\/p>\n
\u201c(There are) roughly 10 lakh Form 17C forms for a total of 543 constituencies\u2026 it is manageable because of the army below them (the Election Commission),\u201d Mr Singhvi responded.<\/p>\n
The court, though, was not convinced.<\/p>\n
Form 17C Row In Supreme Court
The row is over the swift release of data from Form 17C and Form 17C (Part II) of the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961, which records a multitude of data, starting with the name of each polling booth and includes the number of voters, number of votes rejected, and the number finally accepted.<\/p>\n
The second part of Form 17C is also critical; this comes into play on counting day (June 4, in this case) when the number of votes for all candidates is cross-checked against the total number of accepted votes on polling day. This is to guard against manipulation of votes for\/by any party.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
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[ad_1] \u00a0 New Delhi: The Supreme Court has adjourned \u2013 till after the Lok Sabha election \u2013 pleas seeking release of voter turnout data, including votes polled and\/or rejected, within 48 hours of end of polling at each booth. The pleas sought directions to the Election Commission to compile and publish this data on its […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-nation"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenftimes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenftimes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenftimes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenftimes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenftimes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27029"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thenftimes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27029\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27031,"href":"https:\/\/thenftimes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27029\/revisions\/27031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenftimes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenftimes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenftimes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}