Supreme Court seeks ECI’s response on plea for release of voter turnout data within 48 hours of Lok Sabha elections

financialexpress.com:

The Supreme Court on Friday sought a response from the Election Commission of India (ECI) within a week on a plea by an NGO seeking a direction to upload polling station-wise voter turnout data on its website within 48 hours of the conclusion of polling for each phase of the Lok Sabha elections, reports Bar and Bench.

A bench comprising Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra assembled at 6 30 PM to hear the plea of NGO Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) on the issue.

The bench asked the ECI counsel, Amit Sharma, what was the difficulty in putting up voter turnout details on its website.

“It takes time. We have to collect a lot of data,” the ECI counsel said.

The CJI directed that the poll panel be granted a reasonable amount of time to respond to the plea. The case has been scheduled for a hearing before an appropriate bench during the summer vacation on May 24, just a day before the sixth phase of the seven-phase Lok Sabha polls.

Earlier today, advocate Prashant Bhushan, representing the NGO, raised the matter and requested an urgent listing of the petition.

Last week, the NGO submitted an interim application as part of its 2019 Public Interest Litigation (PIL). The application seeks directions to the poll panel for the immediate uploading of “scanned legible copies of Form 17C Part-I (Account of Votes Recorded)” from all polling stations following the polls.

The application was submitted in response to the recent uproar surrounding the notable surge in the final voter turnout figures announced by the poll body for the initial two phases of the ongoing Lok Sabha elections, in contrast to the initial estimates disclosed on the respective polling days.

According to the application,