The Supreme Court on Wednesday pulled up the Election Commission of India (ECI) after the poll body said it could not trace the video recording of the 2023 vote count in Karnataka’s Sringeri assembly constituency.
In practice, candidates, parties and citizens relied on this wording to seek material the rules did not explicitly name, including video recordings. It now reads: “…all other papers as specified in these rules relating to the election shall be open to public inspection. Jairam Ramesh, a Congress leader and Rajya Sabha MP, had challenged the amendment in the Supreme Court. His counsel argued that CCTV footage could not reveal voting choices. The court later tagged a similar petition by RTI activist Anjali Bhardwaj with Ramesh’s.
Rule 93 of the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961, governs who can inspect election records. Before December 2024, Rule 93(2)(a) said: “All other papers relating to the election shall be open to public inspection. In December 2024, the Union law ministry amended the rule on the ECI’s recommendation by inserting five words. On January 15, 2025, a bench of then Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar issued notice to the Union government and the ECI.
Congress MLA TD Rajegowda had sought the footage after a recount ordered by the Karnataka high court overturned his 201-vote win over the BJP’s DN Jeevaraj.
A bench of justices Sanjay Kumar and Sanjeev Sachdeva said it would “not accept these kinds of lame excuses” and warned that if the ECI did not produce whatever records it has, it would draw an adverse inference against the commission.
