PoliticsSupreme Court
'Lame excuses': Supreme Court tells Election Commission to produce lost Sringeri counting video
The Commission said it could not trace the 2023 recording at the centre of a Karnataka seat decided by a recount. The court warned it would draw an adverse inference.
Key points
- The Election Commission told the court it could not trace the video of the 2023 Sringeri count.
- The bench said it would draw an adverse inference if the records were not produced.
- Congress MLA T D Rajegowda is fighting a recount that declared the BJP's D N Jeevaraj the winner.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday rebuked the Election Commission of India for telling it that the video recording of the 2023 vote count in Karnataka’s Sringeri constituency could not be found, and ordered it to produce whatever records it holds.
“How can the Election Commission of India (ECI) say that it has lost its record?” Justice Sanjay Kumar asked, sitting with Justice Sanjeev Sachdeva. “Your whole purpose is to hold an election, and you need to have a document.”
Senior advocate Seshadri Naidu, for the Commission, said it had been unable to trace the footage. The bench was not persuaded. “We will not accept these kinds of lame excuses,” it said. “Whatever there is produce by the next date of hearing. Otherwise we will have to draw adverse inference against you.”
A seat that changed hands
The case concerns one of the closest results of the 2023 Karnataka election. Congress leader T D Rajegowda won Sringeri by 201 votes. His BJP rival, D N Jeevaraj, challenged the result in an election petition, and on 6 April this year the Karnataka High Court ordered a recount of postal ballots, including a fresh look at 279 that had been rejected.
On 3 May the returning officer declared a revised result. Rajegowda’s tally fell by 255 votes and Jeevaraj was declared elected. Rajegowda then came to the Supreme Court, which in May allowed him to continue as MLA while his appeal is pending.
What Rajegowda wants
Rajegowda argues that the returning officer went beyond the High Court’s order. The court had asked only for the 279 rejected postal ballots to be re-examined, he says, but 562 valid postal ballots that had gone in his favour were also reconsidered. He also says a recount was unnecessary because the High Court had found in his favour on Jeevaraj’s allegations of corrupt practices.
To test those claims he has asked for the observer’s report and the video recordings of both the original count and the recount. That is the material the Commission now says it cannot find.
“Where is the question of you saying, ‘Yeah, we are trying to trace it’?” the bench asked the Commission’s counsel.
Jeevaraj faces a separate criminal case over alleged tampering with postal ballot papers, which the Karnataka High Court stayed in May. The appeal will next be heard on 15 February 2027, by which date the Commission must place all available records before the court.