The ADR has also sought a direction to provide in the public domain a tabulation of the constituency and polling station-wise figures of voter turnout in absolute numbers and percentage form for the ongoing 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
ON Friday, the Supreme Court directed the Election Commission of India (ECI) to respond to an application filed by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), an apolitical and non-partisan non-profit organisation, seeking directions to the ECI to disclose the authenticated records of voter turnout by uploading on its website scanned legible copies of Form 17C Part-I (Account of Votes Recorded) of all polling stations after each phase of polling in the on-going 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
A Bench comprising Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dr D.Y. Chandrachud and Justices J.B. Pardiwala and Manoj Misra asked the ECI to file its reply within a week. The Bench has directed the listing of the application on May 24 before an appropriate Bench.
The Bench sat late in the evening to hear the application. The Bench took up the matter around 6:15 p.m. on Friday.
During the hearing, the Bench asked the ECI as to the difficulty in publishing form 17C information immediately. To this, the counsel for the ECI stated that the process takes time and cannot be done overnight.
During the hearing, the Bench asked the ECI as to the difficulty in publishing form 17C information immediately. To this, the counsel for the ECI stated that the process takes time and cannot be done overnight.
“We get the form from every booth of the constituency,” the counsel for the ECI stated.
The CJI again asked why the ECI could not upload the form 17C.
Senior advocate Maninder Singh, appearing for the ECI, sought time to respond to the application filed by the ADR. Finding the request “fair”, the Bench granted a week to the ECI to file its reply.
Appearing for the ADR, advocate Prashant Bhushan submitted that the application was served on the ECI seven days ago. He claimed that the citizens perhaps feel that the EVMs are being replaced, alluding to the rise of 6 percent in total turnout.
The ADR has also sought a direction to provide in the public domain a tabulation of the constituency and polling station-wise figures of voter turnout in absolute numbers and percentage form for the ongoing 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Besides, the ADR has also urged the court to ask the ECI to disclose Part II of Form 17C which contains the candidate-wise result of counting after the compilation of results.
Rule 49S and Rule 56C (2) of the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961 provide that the presiding officer is to prepare an account of votes recorded in form 17C (Part I) and the returning officer is to record the number of votes in favor of each candidate (Part II of the Form 17).
The said two provisions read:
Rule 49S. Account of votes recorded:
(1) The presiding officer shall at the close of the poll prepare an account of votes recorded in Form 17C and enclose it in a separate cover with the words ‘account of votes recorded’ superscribed thereon.
(2) The presiding officer shall furnish to every polling agent present at the close of the poll a true copy of the entries made in Form 17C after obtaining a receipt from the said polling agent therefor and shall attest it as a true copy.
Rule 56C. Counting of votes:
(1) After the returning officer is satisfied that a voting machine has in fact not been tampered with, he shall have the votes recorded therein counted by pressing the appropriate button marked ‘result’ provided in the control unit whereby the total votes polled and votes polled by each candidate shall be displayed in respect of each such candidate on the display panel provided for the purpose in the unit.
(2) As the votes polled by each candidate are displayed on the control unit, the returning officer shall have:
(a) the number of such votes recorded separately in respect of each candidate in Part II on Form 17C; provided that the test vote recorded, if any, for a candidate, as per item 5 in Part I of Form 17C, shall be subtracted from the number of votes recorded for such candidate as displayed on the control unit.
(b) Part II of Form 17C completed in other respects and signed by the counting supervisor and also by the candidates or their election agents or their counting agents present; and
(c) corresponding entries made in a result sheet in Form 20 and the particulars so entered in the result sheet announced.
In its application, the ADR has stated that the voter turn-out data for the first two phases of the ongoing 2024 Lok Sabha elections published by ECI on April 30 has been published 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.