SC to hear shortly plea seeking release of voter turnout data for ongoing Lok Sabha polls within 48 hours
New Delhi: The Supreme Court will shortly hear a plea filed by an NGO seeking a direction to the Election Commission of India (ECI) to upload polling station-wise voter turnout data on the website of the poll body within 48 hours of the conclusion of polling for each phase of the ongoing Lok Sabha elections.
NGO sought urgent listing of plea
Advocate Prashant Bhushan, who appeared for the NGO Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), mentioned the plea seeking urgent listing earlier in the day before a bench comprising Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud, Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice Manoj Misra.
Apex Court agreed to hear the plea at the end of the board
The bench agreed to grant urgent hearing on the plea of the NGO at the end of the board and asked the ECI counsel to take instructions, news agency PTI reported.
ADR filed an interim application last week
ADR had filed an interim application last week in its 2019 Public Interest Litigation seeking directions to the ECI that scanned legible copies of Form 17C Part-I (Account of Votes Recorded)” of all polling stations be uploaded immediately after the polls.
ADR, in its interim application, has sought direction from the top court to the poll panel 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 and also a tabulation of constituency-wise figures of voter turnout in absolute numbers in the ongoing Lok Sabha elections.
What did the plea filed by NGO say?
The plea filed by the NGO has pointed out that the ECI published the voter turnout data for the first two phases of the ongoing Lok Sabha elections on April 30, which was 11 days of the first phase of polling on April 19 and four days after second phase of polling on April 26 and the data published by the ECI on April 30 showed a sharp increase (by about 5-6 per cent) as compared to the initial percentages announced by ECI as of 7 pm on the day of polling.
ADR has said that the “inordinate” delay in the release of final voter turnout data by the ECI, coupled with the unusually high revision of over 5 per cent in ECI’s press note of April 30, 2024 has raised concerns and public suspicion regarding the correctness of the said data.
ADR said that the plea was filed before the top court to ensure that the democratic process is not subverted by electoral irregularities.