The Supreme Court on Friday directed the Election Commission to ensure that CCTV video recordings of polling booths are maintained and preserved till the adjudication of a PIL challenging the poll panel’s August 7 and 23, 2024 communications to increase the number of voters per polling booth from earlier 1,200 to 1,500.

A bench of Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar gave the poll panel three weeks more to file its reply to the plea challenging amendment in its rules to increase the number of voters to 1500 at each polling booth.

Advertisement

The bench granted the Election Commission three more weeks to file its reply on the poll panel’s request for more time.

“The counsel appearing for respondent number 1 (ECI) prays for further time to file an affidavit… Let the affidavit be filed within three weeks from today… Rejoinder if any shall be filed within 3 weeks after the service of the aforesaid affidavit. We deem it appropriate to direct respondent no 1 to maintain the CCTV recordings as they were doing earlier,” the bench said in its order.

Senior advocates Abhishek Manu Singhvi, and Shadan Farasat, assisted by advocate on record Talha Abdul Rahman appeared for the PIL petitioner and social activist Indu Prakash Singh who has challenged the EC’s August 7 and 23, 2024 communications to the extent that the number of electors at each polling station in each constituency has been increased.

In the last hearing of the matter on December 2, 2024, the Supreme Court had sought response from the Election Commission to explain its decision to increase the number of voters per polling booth to from 1,200 to 1,500.

The court had asked the poll panel “You file a short affidavit. Explain that position because we are concerned that no voter should be troubled.”

Senior advocate Maninder Singh, appearing for Election Commission, in the last hearing, had told the court that the number of voters per polling booth was raised to 1,500 in 2019 and no grievance was raised up until now.

“Political parties are consulted for every booth before it is decided,” the senior advocate for the poll panel told the bench.

The PIL petitioner and social activist Indu Prakash Singh has moved the top court seeking directions that the number of electors per polling booth be retained at 1,200 as was followed from 1957 to 2019, and that the number of polling stations be increased to a sufficient number as per the mandate under Section 25 of the Representation of People Act.