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SCBA elections: Votes to be recounted, election committee tells Supreme Court
The bench recorded the submissions and said it had no objection to the recounting irrespective of how many days it took but the recounting must be done by the existing committee only
The votes cast in the recently concluded Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) elections will be recounted, a court-elected committee informed the Supreme Court on Monday.
The development comes amid allegations of irregularities in the polls conducted on May 21 this year.
Senior advocate Vijay Hansaria, a member of the court-appointed election committee, told a bench of justices Surya Kant and Dipankar Datta that such recounting will be done for the post of the SCBA President as well as other Executive Committee (EC) positions.
Hansaria told the bench that the committee had indeed found discrepancies in the vote count, as alleged. He said the number of votes declared for the President’s post was 2,651, which exceeded the 2,588 ballots issued.
Hansaria said the committee will complete the recounting of votes within the next “two to three days”.
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The bench recorded the submissions and said it had no objection to the recounting irrespective of how many days it took but the recounting must be done by the existing committee only, it said.
“Let it take four days. No problem. Our official will be there, someone from the registrar’s office. If any one of you has a personal difficulty with the recount, we will substitute them. We can’t reconstitute the committee,” the court said.
The court also directed the election committee to submit a report on the recounting before the fresh results are publicly announced.
When senior counsel Adish Aggarwala, who was among those to raise objections, was asked by the court to put all grievances in writing.
“We are not entertaining this now. We have told you all grievances be given in writing. It will be placed before the committee. Then the committee report will be placed before us. Then we will consider,” the bench said.
The committee’s decision to recount the votes follows a petition filed by Aggarwala on May 23, alleging bogus voting and other irregularities during the SCBA polls. The court had earlier directed the election committee to preserve all CCTV footage related to the election process.
The court ordered that video cameras used during the elections must remain in the custody of senior advocate Vijay Hansaria until further notice.
The Supreme Court had earlier also said it will set aside the SCBA elections if it finds merit in the allegations.
In the polls conducted on May 21 this year, senior advocate Vikas Singh was elected as the SCBA President defeating senior advocates Aggarwala and Pradeep Kumar Rai.
Senior advocate Rahul Kaushik was elected the Vice President while advocate Pragya Baghel was elected Secretary.
