Supreme Court asks ECI to examine ADR, Mahua Moitra’s pleas for disclosure of voter turnout data

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the Election Commission of India (ECI) to examine the plea seeking disclosure of final authenticated data of voter turnout in all polling stations within 48 hours of the polling.

Senior advocate Maninder Singh, appearing for ECI, told the apex court that a new Election Commissioner has been appointed, and the petitioners can meet him and have their grievances redressed.

A bench of Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna and Justices Sanjay Kumar and KV Viswanathan said that the petitioners, Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra, are at liberty to make a representation to the ECI within ten days.

The top court then deferred the hearing in the case and posted it for consideration on July 28.

“List this on the week commencing July 28. In the meanwhile, counsel for ECI states that the petitioners may file a representation with ECI and the ECI will give them a hearing and inform them about the same in advance. Let representation be made in 10 days,” the order stated.

The plea filed by ADR and Moitra sought directions to the Election Commission to upload scanned, legible copies of Form 17C Part-I (account of votes recorded), on its website.

During the hearing of the case, senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi and Prashant Bhushan, appearing for Moitra and ADR, respectively, argued that there was a huge discrepancy in the EVM count and the ones who voted.

The applications filed in an already pending plea sought disclosure of final authenticated data of voter turnout in all polling stations, including the number of votes polled in the Lok Sabha Elections 2024 within 48 hours of the polling.

The NGO ADR filed the application in 2024, alleging an inordinate delay in publishing voter turnout data for the first two phases of polling in the elections. It sought direction to immediately upload accounts of votes recorded in all polling stations after the close of each phase’s polling.

The application, besides the delay in publishing the voter turnout details, said there was a sharp spike (about 5-6 per cent) in the figures from the initial voter turnout percentages released by the Election Commission.

It sought a direction to the Election Commission to provide tabulated polling station-wise data in absolute figures of the number of votes polled as recorded, in Form 17C Part–I, after each phase of polling in the ongoing 2024 Lok Sabha elections and also a tabulation of constituency-wise figures of voter turnout in absolute numbers in the ongoing 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

It further asked for uploading on the ECI website the scanned legible copies of Form 17C Part–II, which contained the candidate-wise result of counting after the compilation of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections results.

The application said the voter turnout data for the first two phases of the Lok Sabha elections were published by the ECI on April 30, 11 days after the first phase of polling held on April 19 and four days after the second phase of polling held on April 26. (ANI)