New Delhi:

The Supreme Court has adjourned – till after the Lok Sabha election – pleas seeking release of voter turnout data, including votes polled and/or rejected, within 48 hours of end of polling at each booth.

The pleas sought directions to the Election Commission to compile and publish this data on its website after each phase, beginning with the next round of voting for the 2024 Lok Sabha election.

A vacation bench of the court reasoned an immediate ruling could “overburden the Election Commission during polls… by changing the process midway”. The bench also noted five of seven voting phases had been completed and that the results were due in less than two weeks, on June 4.

Perhaps more significantly, Justice S Narasimha and Sanjay Karol pointed out the interim appeal by the current petitioner – the Association for Democratic Reforms – was similar to a writ petition by the Trinamool’s Mahua Moitra in 2019, which wanted the EC to “formulate a protocol mandating reporting of Form 17C… within 48 hours (for a Lok Sabha election)”, which is unresolved.

I was original petitioner in Supreme Court in 2019 itself via WPC 1389/2019 asking EC to publish within 48 hrs of polling all voter data of Form 17C. Case is listed on May 24 for hearing.@AITCofficial@MamataOfficialpic.twitter.com/F1aqS9nK4R

— Mahua Moitra (@MahuaMoitra) May 20, 2024

“We are simpliciter (directly) adjourning… (and) giving one observation as to why relief cannot be granted at this stage,” the court said, stating also that this did not constitute a dismissal of the pleas.

“Prima facie we are not inclined to grant relief at this stage, in view of similarity of prayers… granting interim relief would mount to final relief. Therefore, we list these applications after the vacation…”

“What is the nexus between 2019 and 2024 applications? Why didn’t you file a separate writ petition?” the court questioned ADR, insisting it would not intervene in the middle of an election.

“This application will be heard after the election… in-between an election, hands off! We cannot interrupt (the electoral process)… we are also responsible citizens,” Justice Datta said.

Form 17C Hearing In Supreme Court

Today’s hearing began with senior advocate Maninder Singh, arguing for the Election Commission, criticising the petition as a “classic case of abuse of law” and said it was only meant to “erode the integrity of the election”. “These are false allegations… done only on apprehensions,” Mr Singh said.

Mr Singh questioned opposition leaders and political activists’ claim of five to six per cent discrepancy in voter data released by the poll panel on the day of voting and updated figures released days later; in the case of the first phase this updated data was released after 11 days.

Several opposition leaders, including Mahua Moitra and the Congress’ Pawan Khera, have red-flagged what they claim as possible vote fraud – i.e., there is concern the increased number of votes shown after polling could be illegally added to the tally of any one political party.

However, Mr Singh told the court, “This is false… data will differ only by one or two per cent.”

READ | Making Form 17C Data Public Will Cause Confusion: Poll Body

In the last hearing the EC had argued there is no legal mandate requiring release of Form 17C data to a “general entity”, and that this information had only to be released to the polling officer in a booth.

Meanwhile, senior advocate Abhishek Singhvi, representing Ms Moitra, had argued that even if the petition had travelled from 2019 to 2024 it should be heard as it deals with a serious issue.

The court then noted that even if it were to consider and rule on the petitions, it had to “very conscious of the ground reality”. “Tomorrow (May 25) is the sixth phase… this particular compliance would require manpower (and) we feel this could be heard after the vacation,” Justice Datta said.

“(There are) roughly 10 lakh Form 17C forms for a total of 543 constituencies… it is manageable because of the army below them (the Election Commission),” Mr Singhvi responded.

The court, though, was not convinced.

Form 17C Row In Supreme Court

The row is over the swift release of data from Form 17C and Form 17C (Part II) of the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961, which records a multitude of data, starting with the name of each polling booth and includes the number of voters, number of votes rejected, and the number finally accepted.

NDTV Explains | Form 17C And Row Over Poll Panel’s Voter Turnout Data

The second part of Form 17C is also critical; this comes into play on counting day (June 4, in this case) when the number of votes for all candidates is cross-checked against the total number of accepted votes on polling day. This is to guard against manipulation of votes for/by any party.

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New Delhi:

The Election Commission of India on Wednesday filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court saying disclosure of voter turnout data based on Form 17C (records of votes polled in each polling station) will cause confusion among voters as it will also include postal ballot counts.

The ECI in an affidavit filed before the top court contended that there is no legal right that can be claimed towards publishing final authenticated data of voter turnout in all polling stations.

It said uploading of Form 17C on the website can lead to mischief and that there are possibilities of images being morphed, which can create “widespread discomfort and mistrust”.

“In any electoral contest, the margin of victory may be very close. In such cases, disclosure of Form 17C in public domain may cause confusion in the minds of the voters with regard to the total votes polled as the latter figure would include the number of votes polled as per Form 17C as well as the votes received through postal ballots. However, such difference may not be easily understood by the voters and may be used by persons with motivated interests to cast aspersion on the whole electoral process… cause chaos in the election machinery which is already in motion,” the affidavit stated.

If further stated that as per rules, Form 17C needs to be given only to the polling agent and rules do not permit the giving of Form 17C to any other entity. General disclosure of Form 17C to public is not contemplated by Rules, ECI told the top court.

The poll panel filed the affidavit on an application by NGO Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) seeking 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 ECI sought dismissal of application filed by ADR saying that certain “vested interests” keep on throwing false allegations at it to discredit its working.

Last week, the Supreme Court asked ECI to file its response on the application seeking direction to immediately upload account of votes recorded of all polling stations after the close of polling of each phase in the ongoing 2024 Lok Sabha election.

The NGO ADR alleged inordinate delay in the publication of voter turnout data of the first two phases of polling in the elections.

The application, besides delay in publishing the voter-turnout details, said there was a sharp spike in 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 on-going 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 results of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

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, after 11 days of the first phase of polling held on April 19 and four days after the second phase of polling held on April 26.

It said that the data published by the ECI in its April 30 press release showed a sharp increase (by about 5-6 per cent) from the initial percentages announced by it on the polling day.

The NGO pointed out the data published in the press release by the ECI on April 30, 2024 (Phase I voter turnout- 66.14 per cent and Phase II voter turnout – 66.71 per cent) when compared with the initial data of April 19, 2024 and April 26, 2024 respectively showed an increase of nearly 6 per cent in the Phase I data and increase of approximately 5.75 per cent in the Phase II data.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)