The Supreme Court on Wednesday said it would hear the plea of Congress leader Jairam Ramesh against the Election Commission’s tweaking of the Conduct of Election Rules in the week commencing March 17.
The Congress and transparency activists had castigated the Centre and the Election Commission for the amendment that the Opposition party and the activists said would allow the poll panel to withhold documents on the Haryana Assembly elections that a high court had directed it to release to an RTI applicant.
The Centre has amended Rule 93(2)(a) of the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961, inserting the words “as specified in these rules” relating to the production and inspection of election papers on a court’s orders.
The rule now reads: “Subject to such conditions and to the payment of such fee as the Election Commission may direct — (a) all other papers as specified in these rules relating to the election shall be open to public inspection…”
Election Commission sources had earlier said the amendment merely clarified an existing rule and was introduced to prevent the misuse of CCTV footage from inside polling stations.
The amendment had come less than a fortnight after Punjab and Haryana High Court passed a favourable order on a plea from anti-EVM activist Mehmood Pracha demanding videography, CCTV footage and copies of Forms 17 C (Parts I and II) relating to this year’s Haryana Assembly polls.
The BJP did unexpectedly well in the state amid allegations of electoral malpractice, which the poll panel has denied.
Almost all parts of the election process are videographed, including the checking of the EVMs, their storage, and the counting of votes in the presence of the candidates’ representatives. CCTV cameras are installed in all strong rooms, where the EVMs are stored, as well as at the counting centres and select polling stations.
Form 17C, Part I, records the number of votes cast at a polling station, and Part II records the number of votes received by each candidate. Under current practice, all the above are given to candidates or their representatives free of charge.
On Wednesday, Rahul Gandhi also doubled down on the Congress party’s charge against the Election Commission, saying: "It is the duty of the EC to provide transparency in polls; there is a serious problem with our election system.”
He called for the EC to come clean and release critical data from the recent Maharashtra and Haryana elections, which, according to him, had been withheld.