The Supreme Court Friday asked the Election Commission (EC) to ensure that CCTV recordings of voting available with it are not erased during the pendency of a PIL challenging the poll body’s decision to increase maximum number of voters per polling station from 1,200 to 1,500. A two-judge bench presided by CJI Sanjiv Khanna said this as the counsel appearing for EC sought more time to file its response to the petition. “The counsel appearing for respondent number 1 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 three weeks after the service of the aforesaid affidavit. We deem it appropriate to direct respondent No. 1 to maintain CCTV recordings as they were doing earlier,” the bench said. When the matter was last heard on December 2, the EC had told the Supreme Court that the “1,500 [maximum number of voters per polling station] is being carried out from 2019. And there’s no problem with franchise. People have not complained anywhere.”. To the bench’s query as to what happens if the number of voters at polling stations goes beyond 1,500, the EC counsel had said, “The mechanism itself provides that before the election, the pre-poll etc starts, and political parties are consulted in every constituency.” The Supreme Court then told the EC counsel, “You file a short affidavit. Explain that position because we are concerned that no voter should be troubled.” Though the Supreme Court gave the poll body three weeks then to file the affidavit, the EC Friday sought more time to file it. In the PIL, petitioner Indu Prakash Singh, a social activist, claimed EC’s decision to raise the number of voters could lead to longer queues at polling booths and deter the underprivileged from voting as they may not be able to spare a disproportionate amount of time for casting their ballot. On Wednesday, the Supreme Court had issued notice on a plea by Congress leader Jairam Ramesh challenging some recent changes to the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961, limiting public inspection of election papers to only those documents specified in the provisions. The petition contended that this effectively meant no public disclosure of the CCTV footage of polling and other relevant records.
