Publishing polling booth-wise data will 'vitiate' electoral space: EC

The Election Commission has opposed in the Supreme Court an NGO's demand to upload polling station-wise voter turnout data on its website within 48 hours of the conclusion of polling for each phase of the Lok Sabha elections, contending it will "vitiate" the electoral space and cause "chaos" in the poll machinery in the midst of the general elections. A vacation bench of Justices Dipankar Datta and Satish Chandra Sharma is scheduled to hear the plea of NGO Association for Democratic Reforms', which has also sought direction to the poll panel that scanned legible copies of Form 17C Part-I (Account of Votes Recorded) of all polling stations be uploaded immediately after the polls. In its counter affidavit, the poll panel said there is no legal mandate to provide Form 17C to any person other than the candidate or his agent. It said that public posting of Form 17C - which gives the number of votes polled in a polling station - is not provided in the statutory framework and could lead t