POLL

Steps to prevent commission of irregularities by Presiding officers.

Election Commission's Order No. 576/11/(ES027)/95/JS-II Dated : 05.1.1995.

----------------------------------------------------ORDER

The Election Commission has observed at the recently concluded general elections to the Legislative Assemblies of Andhra Pradesh, Goa, Karnataka and Sikkim that several irregularities of serious nature were committed by the Presiding Officers at the polling stations which sometimes may have a material effect on the result of the election in the constituency concerned.

2. Some of these serious irregularities noticed were of the following nature:-

(i) At the time of counting of votes, it was found that in many cases the ballot papers taken out of the ballot boxes did not contain the signatures of the Presiding Officers and/or the distinguishing marks on their back as are required to be mandatorily affixed by the Presiding Officers under rule 38(1) of the Conduct of Elections Rules, 1961.

(ii) In some cases, ballot papers were not detached from their counterfoils before issue to electors and ballot papers were inserted into the ballot boxes along with their counterfoils intact which could lead to violation of secrecy of vote.

(iii) In certain other cases, the Ballot Paper Account in Part I of Form 16 was not properly and accurately prepared with the result that there were discrepancies in the number of ballot papers supposed to be contained in the ballot box(es) of a polling station and the number of ballot papers actually found therein and there was a lot of wastage of valuable time and effort to reconcile those discrepancies.

(iv) The ballot boxes in many cases were not found to be properly sealed and secured in accordance with the directions and instructions of the Commission which led to unnecessary doubts with regard to the safety of the contents thereof.

(v) The Presiding Officers' diaries in a large number of cases were found to have not been filled in all respects and many of items were either left blank or were not adequately answered so as to reflect the true picture of the proceedings at the polling station as and when the same took place. In particular, item 18 showing the number of votes polled during every two hourly period did not seem to have been filled regularly at the end of the two hourly interval, but seemed to have been filled after the close of poll, on the basis of some conjectural calculations.

3. The above is only an illustrative list and not an exhaustive list of irregularities found to have been committed by the Presiding Officers. It hardly needs to be emphasized that such irregularities may vitiate the entire poll proceedings at the polling stations requiring a fresh poll in appropriate cases. The enormous inconvenience to electors of the affected polling stations, candidates and their agents, apart from the great administrative and financial strain on the Administration and electoral authorities, involved in the conduct of fresh poll also hardly need to be explained.



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