Congress declares that the Election Commission cannot be authorized to make unilateral changes to such an important law (Election Conducting Rules, 1961).
Congress challenged the rule prohibiting the public release of election-related electronic documents in the Supreme Court on Tuesday.
On December 20, the central government changed election rules to prevent the publication of certain electronic documents such as CCTVs of polling stations, webcast footage, and video recordings of candidates.
Commenting on the petition, Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said, “The Election Commission cannot be allowed to make unilateral changes to such an important law (Conduct of Elections Rules, 1961).
After the rule change on December 21, Ramesh had said: “Why is the Election Commission so afraid of transparency? This approach by the Commission will soon be legally challenged.
The Election Commission added the word in accordance with the rules of law On December 20, on the recommendation of the Election Commission (EC), the Ministry of Justice amended Rule 93(2)(A) of the Conduct of Elections Rules, 1961. Rule 93 reads: “All related documents during the elections will be accessible to the public. » It was replaced with “All election-related documents will be accessible to the public “in accordance with the rules””.
On December 22, Kharge said: This is a well-thought-out conspiracy.
Rules changed due to Punjab-Haryana High Court ruling Officials said that by using AI, false narratives could be spread by tampering with CCTV footage of the polling station. For this reason, a ban was imposed on making electronic records public.
However, even after the changes, these files will remain accessible to candidates. Others can go to court to get it.
In fact, the Punjab-Haryana High Court had ordered to share the documents relating to the Haryana Assembly elections with the petitioner in a case. In this context, CCTV images were also taken into account under Rule 93(2).
However, the Election Commission said this rule does not include electronic records. The rule has been amended to remove this ambiguity.
CE said: There are no rules for making electronic records public The EC said documents such as nomination forms, appointment of election agents, election results and statement of election accounts are mentioned in the rules for the conduct of elections. During the Code of Conduct, electronic documents such as CCTV footage, webcast images and video recordings of candidates do not fall under its purview.
A former European Commission official said that video surveillance coverage and webcasting of polling stations are not carried out under the rule on the conduct of elections, but for the sake of transparency.
At the same time, a Commission official said that many such cases have come to light, in which electronic records were searched by citing rules. The amendment ensures that only documents specified in the rules are made public. Other documents that are not mentioned in the regulation should not be able to be made public.
Fraud in Chandigarh mayoral election exposed through CCTV footage
The then CJI DY Chandrachud had made harsh remarks after watching this video of election official Anil Masih.
In January this year, a CCTV footage showing an election official tampering with the ballot paper during the Chandigarh municipal elections surfaced. This election was jointly conducted by the AAP and the Congress.
After the vote, election official Anil Masih declared the result. In this, BJP candidate Manoj Sonkar got 16 votes. While AAP-Congress candidate Kuldeep Tita got 12 votes.
The election official declared 8 votes of the alliance candidate invalid. In this regard, the AAP-Congress alleged that Masih had invalidated the ballot paper by marking it himself.
The case was taken to the Supreme Court. During the hearing on February 5, the then CJI DY Chandrachud also watched the video in which election official Anil Masih was seen putting a cross on the ballot paper. Chandrachud had made strong comments on this.
The court considered 8 invalid votes to be correct and issued its decision to appoint the coalition candidate as mayor.
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relating to the Electoral Commission…
AAP Complaint – BJP removed names from voter list, including Dalits, backwards and people of Purvanchal.
A delegation of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) visited the Election Commission on December 11 and alleged that names of people were being removed from the electoral roll on a large scale ahead of the general elections in Delhi. To influence the elections, the BJP suppresses the names of voters. …