Late Evening Hearing: Apex Court Directs ECI To File Reply To Plea Seeking Publication Of Form 17C Data On Official Website

The Supreme Court, today, heard the application filed by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) alleging inordinate and unreasonable delay in the release of final voter turnout data by the Election Commission of India (ECI). The application was filed seeking directions to the ECI to upload all scanned legible copies of Form 17C Part-1, which is Account of Votes Recorded, and Part-2 of all polling stations after the close of polling of each phase in ongoing elections.

The matter was mentioned by Advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for the ADR, in the morning for urgent listing, subsequently, the Bench headed by the Chief Justice agreed to hear the at the end of the board.

The Bench comprising Chief Justice DY Chandrachud, Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice Manoj Misra heard the matter even after 6 pm and observed, "At this stage, we find the request on behalf of ECI to be fair. We, accordingly, direct that the IA be listed on 24th May before the assigned vacation bench. We accordingly grant a weeks time to ECI to file the reply.

Bhushan submitted, "All that the Election Commission has to do is to get the figures of Form 17C from the Returning Officer and put that on the website."

Chief Justice asked, "Mr. Sharma, what is the difficulty of ECI putting this on the website?"

Advocate Amit Sharma, counsel for ECI, said, "It takes time, it can't happen overnight."

To which Chief Justice said, "Every polling officer submits the data by the evening...after polling ends. Around 6 PM or 7 pm polling is completed. Then the Returning Officer has the data of the entire constituency, why don't you upload it? We gave you whatever reasonable time."

Sharma further submitted, "The RO has to check every data, because if there is a mismatch then it is a problem...There is a set pattern. First it started with the electoral roll, just before the announcement was made. When elections were announced, then the question was raised on EVMs. Now once the election is in the fifth phase, now the question is raised on electoral data. What happens is these kinds of questions when raised create a huge impact on the new voters and the voter turnout will come down. We are doing whatever statutorily is required to be done as per statute. These are all the additional things that we are doing for the transparency."

He further said, "17C data is given to every candidate, if the candidate has issue, he has his remedies before the law, it is the candidate who has to be aggrieved...he will file an election petition."

Advocate Bhushan referred to the Rule 49B of the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961.

Chief Justice said, "Four phases have already taken place, and the right is really of the polling agent as the polling agent has to take the forms...But for us to direct right now to upload all the data directly on the internet. And who are the citizens who are aggrieved?"

Advocate Bhushan replied, "Citizen feels perhaps these EVMs are being replaced or whatever, because suddenly there is a 6% rise. At the end of the polling phase, they are declaring 60%".

Chief Justice asked Sharma, "What is the reservation for disclosing 17C data?"

Advocate Sharma said, "This issue only creates doubts in minds of voter...there is no difficulty, it takes time."

After 6 pm, after the farewell function in honour of Justice A.S. Bopanna, the Court assembled again and Senior Advocate Maninder Singh appeared for the EC and submitted, "These issues are already dealt in the judgment delivered by your Lordships before...all aspects regarding 17C are covered...you must not entertain this."

Chief Justice asked for the judgment and suggested to Singh that they could file their reply to the Application.

Singh submitted that during the hearing that led to the said judgment, Bhushan relied on news reports tendered across the bar, which turned out to be false.

The Court then adjourned the matter to July 24, a day before the voting in the 6th Phase. The Court ordered that the matter will be listed before the assigned bench.

The present Application is filed in the writ petition which is pending before the Supreme Court seeking directions for investigations of discrepancies and accurate reconciliation of data in the 2019 General Election.

The Application stated that “Without the absolute number of voter turnout data, the general public cannot compare the number of votes polled with the number of votes counted as announced in the results and thus, discrepancies, if any, in the two sets of data (no. of votes polled at polling booths and no. of votes counted by EVM) can only be assessed when absolute numbers, and not merely percentages, for each constituency, are released by the ECI. It is respectfully submitted that unless the exact figures are brought in the public domain, percentage figures are meaningless for the voter.”

The Application also stated that the All India Trinamool Congress has written a letter to the ECI calling upon the ECI to publish the total number of electors in each Parliamentary Constituency, the total number of voters as noted in the register of voters and the number of voters as per EVM for all PCs that have already gone to polls in Phases I and II.

Cause Title: Association of Democratic Reforms & Anr. v. Election Commission of India & Anr. (Writ Petition (Civil) No. 1382 of 2019)