Supreme Court Questions Delay In Voter Turnout Data, Seeks Election Commission's Response

As per the latest update, the top court has given the polling body one week's time to respond to the delay in releasing the data.

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A bench comprising of Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra have listed this matter for May 24.

While hearing the plea filed, the top court asked the Election Commission "what the difficulty is in uploading Form 17C".

Advocate Amit Sharma, appearing for the ECI, stated that since Form 17C is received from every polling station in the country, the process takes time. To this, the CJI stated "It reaches the second day. Now why don't you upload it? We will give you reasonable time".

Background Of The Case

The Lok Sabha Elections 2024 began on April 19 with the first phase of polling. The voter turnout for phase one was published after 11 days after the polling. Similarly, for phase two of the polls, the data was published four days after the polling ended.

In the application filed by the Association for Democratic Reforms, petitioners have noted that the a variation of around five to six percent has also been reported in the final voter turnout and the initial data released on the day of the polling.

The petitioners have urged the EC to upload copies of Form 17C of all polling stations after polling closes in all phases of the Lok Sabha Elections. Furthermore, the poll body has also been asked to provide tabulated polling station-wise data.