The Supreme Court on Wednesday pulled up the Election Commission for “losing” the video footage of vote counting in Karnataka’s Sringeri Assembly constituency in 2023, in which Congress candidate T.D. Rajegowda had defeated the BJP’s D.N. Jeevaraj by a narrow margin but lost after a court-ordered recount.
“How can the Election Commission of India say that it has lost its record? Your whole purpose is to hold an election and for that you need to have a document. Then where is the question of saying ‘yeah we are trying to trace it’? You gave it to the elected candidate?” a bench headed by Justice Sanjay Kumar asked senior counsel D. Seshadri Naidu, appearing for the EC during a hearing.
The bench, which also had Justice Sanjeev Sachdeva, warned of an “adverse inference” if the EC failed to produce the missing video on the next date of hearing.
“There is no custody of records? Whatever you have, produce it on the next date. Otherwise, we will have to draw an adverse inference against you. We will not accept these kinds of lame excuses,” the bench said.
The bench made the observations after Naidu submitted that the EC had tried to find the video recording pursuant to the top court’s last direction, but could not recover it.
The top court was dealing with an appeal filed by Rajegowda challenging a Karnataka High Court judgment that upheld the unseating of the Congress candidate after a recount.
Jeevaraj had earlier challenged Rajegowda’s win through an election petition filed before the high court, which ordered a recount after recording findings on allegations of corrupt practices. It had, however, stayed the criminal proceedings against Rajegowda over tampering allegations brought by Jeevaraj.
In his appeal before the Supreme Court, Rajegowda had assailed the high court order on the ground that it had erroneously directed a recount of postal ballots, including the reverification of 279 ballots rejected during the original counting.
According to Rajegowda, the returning officer had exceeded the scope of the high court’s direction by reverifying 1,251 votes that were declared invalid during the original counting.
The recounting of postal ballots and invalid votes altered the result, with Jeevaraj getting 52 additional votes, leading to him being declared the winner.
The apex court had, through an interim order, said Rajegowda would continue to remain a member of the Legislative Assembly pending disposal of his appeal. The matter is expected to be heard after next week, when the poll panel has to produce the video footage of the 2023 vote counting.
Journalists in court
The Delhi Union of Journalists (DUJ) on Wednesday moved the Supreme Court alleging large-scale intrusions and violation of media personnel’s rights to discharge their professional duties by police during the protests in the capital and sought appropriate directions to the authorities to ensure unhindered access to the media to cover these events.
The DUJ also assailed the Delhi Police’s October 5 advisory restricting coverage access only to accredited journalists.