Supreme Court Bench directs petitioners to make representation before poll panel in 10 days; they have sought authenticated, scanned, legible account of votes after each phase of polling

The Supreme Court on Tuesday (March 18, 2025) asked the Election Commission of India (ECI) to meet with petitioners, Lok Sabha MP Mahua Moitra and representatives of NGO Association for Democratic Reform, and hear their demand to upload on its official website authenticated, scanned and legible account of votes recorded booth wise after each phase of polling.

A Bench headed by Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna directed the petitioners to make their representation before the ECI in the next 10 days.

The ECI, represented by senior advocate Maninder Singh, agreed to grant the petitioners a hearing in a bid to resolve the issues.

The top poll body’s willingness to meet the petitioners signalled a mellowing in stance with a new Chief Election Commissioner, Gyanesh Kumar, assuming office at its helm in February 2025.

Mr. Singh said the ECI was “ready and willing” to hear the petitioners’ representations on the issue.

An affidavit filed by the ECI in May 2024 had taken an uncompromising position against the public disclosure of voter turnout data. The affidavit had argued in the Supreme Court that there was no such “legal mandate” to provide the voter turnout data to any person other than electoral candidates or their polling agents.

The Association for Democratic Reform (ADR), represented by advocates Prashant Bhushan, Neha Rathi and Cheryl D’Souza, had primarily sought the uploading of scanned legible copies of Form 17C (account of votes recorded) from all polling stations after every phase of polling in the General Elections 2024. Rule 49S and Rule 56C (2) of the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961 require the Presiding Officer to prepare an account of votes recorded in Form 17C (Part I) format.

The NGO had alleged an inordinate delay in publishing voter turnout details followed by a sharp spike in figures from the initial voter turnout percentages released by the ECI in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. The development, according to ADR, had rung alarm bells about the authenticity of the polling data available in the public domain and raised suspicions whether the electronic voting machines (EVMs) were switched.

On Tuesday (March 18, 2025), Mr. Singhvi submitted that the ECI’s reticence to divulge the total voter turnout data from all polling booths may be “to avoid a macro picture for analysis and disclosure”.

“Citizens have a right to know. The Supreme Court had intervened in other cases to ensure that citizens knew the criminal antecedents of candidates… In a democracy, we need to know, that’s all,” Mr. Bhushan emphasised.

Mr. Singhvi said there was a “wide discrepancy” between the count of voters at poll booths and the voter turnout published later on.

The ECI had argued that statutory mandate required Form 17C to be shared only with candidates and their agents. However, despite this, EC had taken a “non-statutory” initiative to disclose the voter turnout through voter turnout app, website and various Press releases.

The EC had argued in its affidavit that its “non-statutory” initiative to publish voter turnout data through an app, website and various Press releases during the 2014 polls had been merely facilitative. It said these voter turnout figures were accompanied by a disclaimer that they were based on secondary and provisional data. Besides, some polling stations were situated in far-flung places, and it would take time to transport EVMs and accounts of votes recorded to the Returning Officer’s base offices.