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The Supreme Court of India has directed the Election Commission of India (ECI) to file its response within a week on a plea seeking the disclosure of Form 17C data, which records the number of votes polled in a booth, soon after the elections.
The application, filed jointly by the Association for Democratic Reforms and Common Cause, also seeks a direction that the ECI should disclose the absolute numbers of the voter turnout immediately after each phase of Lok Sabha elections.
During the hearing, the Chief Justice of India, DY Chandrachud, asked the ECI's counsel, Advocate Amit Sharma, about the difficulty in uploading Form 17C on the website.
Sharma explained that the process takes time as they receive the form from every booth of the constituency and that the Returning Officer needs to go through each data to avoid any mismatch.
The CJI also referred to Rule 49S of the Conduct of Election Rules, which states that Form 17C data is given to every polling agent, and expressed reluctance to interfere at this stage.
Advocate Prashant Bhushan, representing the petitioners, raised concerns about the rise in the final voting percentage figures disclosed by the ECI and alleged that there were concerns about the replacement of EVMs.
The ECI's counsel maintained that the Form 17C data is given to every candidate and any objections can be raised in election petitions.
The bench adjourned the hearing for about an hour since the farewell ceremony of Justice AS Bopanna was about to take place.
When the matter was taken up again, Senior Advocate Maninder Singh appeared for the ECI and submitted that the judgment in the EVM-VVPAT case delivered on April 26 analyzed the aspects relating to Rule 49 and Form 17C.
Bhushan opposed this submission, saying that the specific issue raised in the present application was not a subject matter of the EVM-VVPAT case.
The petitioners have also requested the ECI to upload scanned legible copies of Form 17C Part-II which contains the candidate-wise Result of Counting after the compilation of results of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.