Delhi High Court Today (Mar 25) questions fairness of NBDA elections at Patiala House Courts. Election results now depend on Court’s final verdict amid vote discrepancy claims.
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NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court gave notice on petitions which said that the elections for the New Delhi Bar Association (NBDA), held at the Patiala House Courts, were not done in a fair and proper way. These petitions have raised serious doubts about how the election was conducted.
Justice Mini Pushkarna of the Delhi High Court asked for replies from the Election Commissioner, the Observer, and the Returning Officer. The Court also said that the results of the election that happened on March 21 will depend on the final decision of this case. This means the results are not final until the Court gives its verdict.
The Court also gave a clear direction to the Returning Officer. It said that the Returning Officer must give the full video recording of the voting process. This includes both the voting at the polling booth and the process where voters were verified before voting.
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The purpose of this is to see what actually happened during the election and whether the process was proper or not.
These directions were given after some people filed petitions asking the Court to cancel the election results. According to them, the election was not fair and some illegal things happened during voting.
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Senior Advocate KK Sharma, who is representing one of the petitioners, said,
“Some supporters of certain candidates tried to enter the polling stations without having genuine or valid proximity cards. They started creating nuisance and ruckus was created at the polling station for over 1.5 hours.”
He claimed that there was a lot of disturbance at the polling station, and that this confusion went on for more than one and a half hours.
He also said that because of this disturbance, the machine which scans the proximity cards was not working properly. So, many people were able to vote even though they were not properly verified.
He told the Court,
“There is discrepancy in the numbers of votes cast and scanned.”
This means that the number of people who voted and the number of people who were verified do not match.
According to the petitioners, only 1,850 proximity cards were scanned, but somehow 2,034 votes were cast. This shows a big difference and raises serious questions about the voting process.
In reply to this, the lawyer for the Returning Officer told the Court that everything was done properly. He said that voters were checked before they voted and there was a proper method followed.
He told the Court,
“In case there was a glitch in the software, the physical verification ensured that only genuine voters cast their vote. Physical declaration forms that were verified at the time of voting have been kept in sealed cover.”
So, according to him, even if the software had a problem, there was still a backup system in place. He also said that all physical forms used for voter verification have been kept safely in sealed envelopes.
Meanwhile, the Delhi High Court is also looking at similar problems in other bar association elections. Petitions have been filed saying that wrong activities also happened during the elections at Saket Court and Rouse Avenue Court bar associations. These matters are also now in front of the Court.
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