SC says won’t accept ‘lame excuses’ from EC for claiming it lost Karnataka vote count videos

The Supreme Court on Wednesday said it would not accept “lame excuses” from the Election Commission after the poll panel claimed that it was unable to trace the video recording of the counting of votes for the 2023 Assembly elections, reported Bar and Bench.

“How can the Election Commission of India say that it has lost its record?” said a bench of Justices Sanjay Kumar and Sanjeev Sachdeva while hearing an election dispute between Congress leader TD Rajegowda and Bharatiya Janata Party’s DN Jeevaraj.

Rajegowda had won the Assembly elections from the Sringeri constituency in 2023 by a margin of 201 votes.

Jeevraj had moved the Karnataka High Court against Rajegowda’s victory. On April 6, the High Court ordered to re-count the votes, including verification of 279 postal ballots that had been rejected, reported The New Indian Express.

After the votes were counted again, Jeevaraj’s tally increased to 690, while Rajegowda’s dropped to 314, which marked a reduction of 255 votes, reported The Indian Express. Jeevaraj was declared the winner by 52 votes.

Rajegowda had moved the Supreme Court against the declaration.

On May 11, the court directed that he will remain the MLA from Sringeri till a judgement is reached on his appeal.

The court said on Wednesday that it would direct the Election Commission to produce the election observer’s report, video recordings of the...

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