SC refuses to give any order on demand to make voting data public

New Delhi, May 24 (HS): The Supreme Court refused to issue any order on a petition seeking direction to the Election Commission to publish the actual voting figures within 48 hours. The vacation bench headed by Justice Dipankar Dutta said that the demand of the petition filed in 2019 has been raised again through an interim application in the middle of the elections. "We are not ruling it out. This petition will be heard after the summer vacation."

During the hearing, the Supreme Court said that five phases of elections have taken place. It would not be right to put pressure on the Election Commission to change the process now. Advocate Maninder Singh, appearing for the Election Commission, said that the aim of the petitioner is to confuse the voters. Questioning the intentions of the petitioner, the Supreme Court had rejected a petition on April 26.

On May 17, the court had directed the Election Commission to present its side. During the hearing, the court had asked lawyer Amit Sharma, appearing for the Election Commission, what problem the Commission had in uploading Form 17C on the website. Then Sharma had said that this process takes time and it cannot be completed overnight. The Commission takes this form from every booth.

Then Chief Justice DY Chandrachud had asked whether the polling officer of every booth sends Form 17C to the returning officer. Then Sharma had said that it takes time and sometimes he is not able to reach on the day of voting. Then the Chief Justice had said that it is okay, it will reach the next day. Despite that why don't you upload. Then Sharma said that the election officer looks at every data to see if there is any difference between them.

It was said in the petition that the Election Commission is delaying a lot in publishing the voting data of Lok Sabha elections 2024. This has given rise to the possibility of large-scale changes in the figures. It was said in the petition that in the current Lok Sabha elections, the Election Commission published the data after several days. The first phase of voting took place on 19 April, with data published after 11 days. The second phase of voting took place on 26 April, with data published four days later.

It was said in the petition that there was a difference of more than 5 percent between the initial figures released by the Election Commission on the day of voting for both the phases and the final figures. The delay of several days in releasing the actual data by the Election Commission creates doubt in the minds of voters. In such a situation, the Election Commission should be instructed to publish the voting figures immediately after the voting.