Advocate Mehmood Pracha, who contested the ongoing Lok Sabha election as an independent candidate from Rampur constituency in Uttar Pradesh, has approached the Supreme Court alleging that the Returning Officer of the constituency has not furnished him the copies of the Form 17-C record of votes polled in the constituency.

Pracha has urged the top court to pass direction to the Election Commission of India (ECI) to immediately publish voter turnout data soon after the election.

Pracha has filed an intervene application in an already pending matter by the NGO Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) questioning significant increase in voters turn out on the final figures’ issues by the poll panel over the tentative figures issued at the close of the polling day in the Phase I , II and the subsequent phases.

The Association of Democratic Reforms in its applications, which was heard by the top court on May 17, has said that in the first phase the jump in the voter turnout, between the tentative figures – issued on April 19 – and final figures issued after 11 days of polling was nearly 6 per cent.

The final figures were issued on April 30, 2024. Similarly in the second phase the jump in the voter turnout between the tentative figures of voter turnout votes and the final numbers was nearly 6 per cent.

Pracha in his application has stated that after the conclusion of voting in Rampur Lok Sabha constituency on April 30, he had written to the Returning Officer for supply of the EVM machine-wise data of total votes cast on the polling day, as recorded in Form 17-C by the Presiding Officers of Polling Stations in the Rampur constituency.

However, on May 9 the Returning Officer had said that the Form 17-C copies were given to the polling agents of the respective candidates, who were present at the polling stations and they cannot be given now as they are sealed.

On ADR’s application, the top court on May 17 had asked the poll panel to file its response on the application seeking direction to immediately upload an account of votes recorded at all polling stations after the close of polling of each phase in the ongoing 2024 Lok Sabha election. The matter is posted for hearing on May 24.

During the hearing, the bench had orally asked the Election Commission about the difficulty in uploading copies of Form 17-C on its website. The ADR stated that the Election Commission delayed the publication of final voter turnout data for several days after the polling, raising apprehensions in the minds of several voters as there was significant variance in the final data from the initial figures.