In a significant development, the Supreme Court on Friday ordered the Election Commission of India (ECI) to preserve video recordings of polling while hearing a plea against the recent decision to raise the maximum number of voters per polling station from 1,200 to 1,500. A bench led by Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar passed the directive after the counsel representing the ECI sought additional time to respond to the Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by Indu Prakash Singh.
The petitioner has challenged the ECI’s August 2024 communication, arguing that increasing the number of voters per polling station could lead to logistical challenges and compromise the electoral process. With this order, the Supreme Court has ensured that critical polling footage remains intact while the matter is under judicial review.
"The counsel appearing for respondent number 1 prays for further time to file an affidavit. Let the affidavit be filed within three weeks from today. We deem it appropriate to direct respondent no 1 to maintain the CCTV recordings as they were doing earlier," the bench said.
The top court on January 15 sought responses from the Centre and the poll panel on the Congress party's plea against the recent amendments, including no public access to CCTV, to the 1961 election rules. Singh said the decision to increase the number of voters per polling booth was arbitrary and not based on any data.
On October 24, the top court refused to issue any notice to the poll panel but allowed the petitioner to serve the copy to the standing counsel of the ECI so that its stand on the issue is known. The petitioner contended the poll panel's decision would impact the voters during the ensuing assembly elections in Maharashtra, Bihar and Delhi.
Singh said elections were normally held for 11 hours and it took about 60 to 90 seconds to cast a vote, and therefore 660 to 490 persons could cast their vote in a day at one polling station with one EVM. Considering the average voting percentage to be 65.70 per cent, it was perceivable that a polling station prepared to accept 1,000 electors saw around 650 turn up.
Singh's petition said there were booths where the elector turnout was in the range of 85-90 per cent. "In such a situation, about 20 per cent of voters will either end up standing in the queue beyond the voting hours or due to long waiting times, will abandon exercising their right to vote. Neither is acceptable in a progressive republic or a democracy," it added.
(With PTI inputs)
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