NEW DELHI: Supreme Court on Friday refused to entertain an NGO‘s plea for a direction to Election Commission to declare authentic voter turnout figures at the end of each phase of polling and said it was not inclined to issue any interim order amid electioneering.
Hearing an application filed by NGO ‘Association for Democratic Reforms‘ (ADR) in its PIL pending since 2019 and seeking identical mandamus to EC, a vacation bench of Justices Dipankar Datta and Satish Chandra Sharma said, “We are prima facie not inclined to grant interim relief as prayed for in the application as the prayer is similar to that in the 2019 petition.Grant of interim relief would amount to grant of final relief.”
The Justice Datta-led bench said the voter turnout app was a voluntary step taken by EC to inform the public about approximate voting percentage. “EC is not statutorily required to upload preliminary data. Sometimes a good initiative is like ‘aa bail mujhe maar’ (counter-productive),” it said, agreeing with EC’s contention that it was not mandated to put out voter turnout figures after polling for each phase and that it decided to provide the figures on its voter turnout app on its own.
Appearing for EC, senior advocate Maninder Singh took the wind out of the application by claiming that it was based on “suspicions, apprehensions and falsehood” and urged the bench not to entertain such a plea as the “so-called public interest petition” was causing grave harm to the electoral process. “Low voter turnout could possibly be due to the continuous attempts by certain elements to create an atmosphere of suspicion around the electoral process,” he said.
Singh said the court, in its April 26 judgment, had scrutinised every ADR allegation and dismissed it while questioning its bona fide. “But the PIL factory, within hours of the pronouncement of the judgment, filed this application raising another set of apprehensions based on suspicions. No fact is pleaded to substantiate the allegations,” Singh said, adding that as per Article 329(b) of the Constitution, no court shall call into question a parliamentary election except on filing of an election petition after the conclusion of the poll process.
Terming false ADR’s assertion that there had been a variation of 5-6% in the final voter turnout data from the preliminary statistics released by EC, Singh said the figure registered on the voter turnout app, which was based on preliminary assessment, varied from the final turnout data only by 1-2%.
A vacation bench of Justices Dipankar Datta and Satish Chandra Sharma SC repeatedly asked why ADR did not take steps for early hearing of its 2019 petition in the last five years and how it could seek interim relief which was similar to the relief sought in its 2019 petition.
Senior advocate Dushyant Dave, for ADR, admitted that the NGO was damned by SC but reminded the court that ADR had over the years played an important role in assisting the court to develop the electoral jurisprudence.
Hearing an application filed by NGO ‘Association for Democratic Reforms‘ (ADR) in its PIL pending since 2019 and seeking identical mandamus to EC, a vacation bench of Justices Dipankar Datta and Satish Chandra Sharma said, “We are prima facie not inclined to grant interim relief as prayed for in the application as the prayer is similar to that in the 2019 petition.Grant of interim relief would amount to grant of final relief.”
The Justice Datta-led bench said the voter turnout app was a voluntary step taken by EC to inform the public about approximate voting percentage. “EC is not statutorily required to upload preliminary data. Sometimes a good initiative is like ‘aa bail mujhe maar’ (counter-productive),” it said, agreeing with EC’s contention that it was not mandated to put out voter turnout figures after polling for each phase and that it decided to provide the figures on its voter turnout app on its own.
Appearing for EC, senior advocate Maninder Singh took the wind out of the application by claiming that it was based on “suspicions, apprehensions and falsehood” and urged the bench not to entertain such a plea as the “so-called public interest petition” was causing grave harm to the electoral process. “Low voter turnout could possibly be due to the continuous attempts by certain elements to create an atmosphere of suspicion around the electoral process,” he said.
Singh said the court, in its April 26 judgment, had scrutinised every ADR allegation and dismissed it while questioning its bona fide. “But the PIL factory, within hours of the pronouncement of the judgment, filed this application raising another set of apprehensions based on suspicions. No fact is pleaded to substantiate the allegations,” Singh said, adding that as per Article 329(b) of the Constitution, no court shall call into question a parliamentary election except on filing of an election petition after the conclusion of the poll process.
Terming false ADR’s assertion that there had been a variation of 5-6% in the final voter turnout data from the preliminary statistics released by EC, Singh said the figure registered on the voter turnout app, which was based on preliminary assessment, varied from the final turnout data only by 1-2%.
A vacation bench of Justices Dipankar Datta and Satish Chandra Sharma SC repeatedly asked why ADR did not take steps for early hearing of its 2019 petition in the last five years and how it could seek interim relief which was similar to the relief sought in its 2019 petition.
Senior advocate Dushyant Dave, for ADR, admitted that the NGO was damned by SC but reminded the court that ADR had over the years played an important role in assisting the court to develop the electoral jurisprudence.
