PIL against declaring results booth-wise

The recent incident of Maharashtra deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar's alleged threat to the people of Baramati constituency to cut off water supply in their area if they did not vote for his cousin Supriya Sule in the 2014 election has prompted a PIL before the Supreme Court.

Yogesh Gupta, a lawyer from Punjab and Haryana high court, on Monday filed the PIL questioning the manner in which the Lok Sabha election results are declared and sought the poll panel not to disclose booth-wise results.

The petitioner contended that due to declaration of results booth-wise or EVM-wise, the political leaders can harass the voters in case they had not voted for them. He sought for a mechanism to be followed to protect "the privacy of the right to vote" of the citizens.

A bench headed by justice Dipak Misra issued notice to the Election Commission and asked for the reply by May 21.Gupta's counsel Vaibhav Sehgal sought the court to pass an interim order for May 16, the date when election results would be declared.

The court, however, declined his plea saying, "the time is very short to pass any order at this stage. Let the election commission file its reply to your plea."

According to the PIL, "In the present scenario, for every ward there is a separate EVM and the result of each machine is given separately. The political parties are aware of the number of votes cast in their favour from every polling booth. They use this to intimidate the voters," the petition said.