Request For Inspection, Recounting Of Ballot Papers Not To Be Considered Unless Specific Genuine Ground & Valid Reasons Cited: SC

The bench headed by Chief Justice S. A. Bobde was hearing two SLPs against the December 14, 2020 orders of the Kerala High Court holding that a mere filing of the application with vague pleadings will not entitle the party to get an order to open the ballet box and to recount the votes casted earlier, and that such a prayer can be granted only if valid reasons are assigned by the party who approach the court with such a request.

The bench heard the petitioners before dismissing the 2 SLPs

The two defeated candidates had moved the High Court aggrieved of an order of the court below refusing to summon a technician from the Electronic Corporation of India Limited, Bangalore for examining the ballot box and for giving evidence by opening the same and by taking the print out of its contents.

The main grievance projected by the petitioners was that the applications were filed in the year 2018, but the court below after a long delay of two years without going into the merits, dismissed the applications.

"A perusal of the order itself would reveal that relying on the dictum laid down in Fulena Singh v. Vijay Kumar Sinha and Ors (AIR 2009 SC 2247), the court below concluded that the petitioner has not made specific averments explaining the mode of tampering of the votes in the ballet box so as to entitle him to call for a technician from the Electronic Corporation of India Limited, Bangalore for examining the ballot box", the Single Judge of the High Court had noted in the impugned decision.

The Single bench appreciated that in the decision cited, the Apex Court has specifically stated that inspection of election papers cannot be opened as a matter of course and inspection of those papers cannot be ordered and that the parties cannot be permitted to inspect the same for the purposes of making a roving enquiry in order to fish out the materials and to derive support to one's own case.

"So inspection, recounting of ballot papers etc. have to be considered only if there is really genuine ground supported by assigning valid reasons for the same. Mere allegations as narrated in the petition (...) are not at all a ground to infer that there was tampering of votes in the electronic voting machine in the election concerned", held the High Court.

Observing that "a defeated candidate cannot grab attention by filing frivolous petitions of this sort", the High Court had dismissed the pleas

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