The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the Election Commission to look into a petition seeking the disclosure of the final and authenticated booth-wise voter turnout data within 48 hours after each phase of polling, Bar and Bench reported.
A bench of Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justices Sanjay Kumar and KV Viswanathan was hearing a petition filed by non-governmental organisation Association for Democratic Reforms and Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra.
The petitioners sought directions to the Election Commission to upload scanned and legible copies of Form 17C (Part I) on its website, according to Bar and Bench.
The Conduct of Election Rules, 1961, require presiding officers to prepare an account of votes recorded in Form 17C (Part I) and record the number of votes in favour of each candidate.
At the hearing, Senior Advocate Maninder Singh, representing the Election Commission, noted that a new chief election commissioner had been appointed and added that the petitioners could meet him to have their grievances heard.
Gyanesh Kumar was appointed the chief election commissioner on February 17.
In response, the court said that the petitioners could make a representation to the Election Commission on the matter within ten days. It then listed the case for hearing on July 28.
In May 2024, the Association for Democratic Reforms filed the petition amid a controversy over the discrepancy in the final voter turnout percentage for the first two phases of the Lok Sabha elections and the provisional polling estimates released by the Election Commission earlier.
The final figures published on April 30, 2024, were substantially higher than the provisional polling estimates.
The delay in the release of final voter turnout data, coupled with the unusually high revision and the absence of disaggregated constituency and polling station figures in absolute numbers, has raised concerns and public suspicion regarding the correctness of the data, the petition had said.
It had sought a direction for the Election Commission to upload copies of Form 17C (Part I) from all polling stations immediately after the voting concludes in each phase of the elections.
The non-governmental organisation also sought tabulated voter turnout data from each constituency and polling station in absolute numbers.
It also sought a direction to the poll panel to “upload on its website scanned legible copies of Form 17C (Part II), which would contain the candidate-wise result of counting after the compilation of results of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections”.
In response, the Election Commission had filed an affidavit in the court stating that there was no legal right that could be claimed for publishing the final voter turnout in all polling stations, according to Bar and Bench.
At the hearing on Tuesday, Advocate Prashant Bhushan, representing the Association for Democratic Reforms, told the bench that there was a huge discrepancy in the votes recorded by the Election Voting Machines and the ones who actually came to vote, Bar and Bench reported.
Senior Advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, representing Moitra, added: “How did end of the day polling of 10 become 50 next morning needs to be explained. There is a discrepancy in final list published and the ones who voted.”
Singhvi also asked why the Election Commission could not scan and disclose Form 17C (Part II). “They want to avoid the macro picture and analysis,” he said.