Allahabad HC Dismisses PIL Seeking Postponement Of Assembly Polls On Ground Of Discrepancies In ECI's Poll Data

The Allahabad High Court today dismissed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) plea seeking postponement of Uttar Pradesh State Assembly Polls 2022 on grounds of certain discrepancies in the information/data provided by the Election Commission of India regarding UP Assembly polls.

Essentially, the PIL plea moved by petitioner in person Rajan Singh submitted that the Election Commission of India, while issuing the Press Note giving the information to hold the assembly elections in five states, gave certain factually incorrect information.

The PIL Plea also pointed out certain discrepancies in the information as is available in the document of Election Commission of India, namely, "Election Commission of India State Election, 2017 to the Legislative Assembly of Uttar Pradesh".

Lastly, the PIL plea also submitted that on account of said discrepancies and the facts relating to the number of Polling Stations, number of Votes not retrieved from EVM, Test Votes, Rejected Votes due to other reasons and NOTA Votes, the electors in the State of Uttar Pradesh have not been provided for correct information and as such, they are not able to make up their mind appropriately to cast their votes and thus, exercise their franchise in an appropriate manner.

Against this backdrop, a direction was sought upon the ECI to clarify the aforementioned facts and in event of failure to do the same, the Legislative Assembly Election-2022 may be postponed till the inquiry may be conducted by any independent Committee.

Court's observations

While taking into account the averments in the PIL plea, the bench of Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and Justice Mohd. Faiz Alam Khan, at the outset, compared the Hindi and English version of the Press Note issued by the ECI and noted that in its Hindi version, the number of Polling Booths/Stations are given pertaining to the year 2016 and 2021 and its English version the said information is shown to be of the year 2017 and 2021.

In this regard, the Court opined that such variance in the Data does not affect, in any manner, the elections which are presently being conducted by the Election Commission of India.

With this, the Court, while dismissing the plea observed thus

"...in the entire petition as also during the course of argument, the petitioner has utterly failed to point out any prejudice which can be said to be caused on account of alleged incorrect information regarding number of Polling Booths/Stations or even the number of votes which could not be retrieved from EVM etc...we have not been able to decipher as to what prejudice is being caused because of the said discrepancy so far as the statutory rights of an elector or a candidate of casting his vote or participation in the election are concerned."

However, the Court did express hope and expectation that the Election Commission of India shall be cautious in the future so that such discrepancy in its data is not reflected.

In related news, the Allahabad High Court last month refused to entertain another Public Interest Litigation (PIL) plea seeking postponement of elections for the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly (scheduled to be held in Feb-March 2022) in view of the COVID surge.

Case title - Rajan Singh v. Election Comm.Of India Thru. Chief Election Comm. And Anr
Case Citation: 2022 LiveLaw (AB) 46

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