Tuesday, February 22 2005 12:57 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: The Supreme Court today (Feb 22, 2005) directed that counting of votes in Haryana be done on February 27.

A three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice R C Lahoti said the counting of votes in the election held for Haryana Legislative Assembly will be held on February 27 as scheduled earlier and not on February 23, a date to which the Election Commission has preponed the counting.

The apex Court said counting of votes for the Haryana Assembly elections could not be taken up before receiving the postal ballots.

It also noted that the Election Commission had preponed the counting date from February 27 to February 23 only because of convenience and not because of any extraordinary situation.

It said the Election Commission has no serious objection to take up the counting of votes as well as the postal ballots together on February 27, the earlier scheduled date.

The court, however, made it clear that this order would not in any way reflect on the powers of the Election Commission to prepone a scheduled date of counting of votes in view of exigencies in other cases.

The Election Commission submitted before the court that the counting date was preponed to February 23 to release at an early date the election staff, security forces and the public buildings where ballot boxes were kept in safe custody.

The Election Commission said it had issued 77,000 postal ballots but the experience was that only 10 to 15 per cent of the total postal ballots issued were actually cast by the voters residing outside the State.

The petitioner cited rule 54 A of Conduct of Elections Rules 1961 which provided that the returning officer would have to first take into account the postal ballots before commencing counting of other votes.

The Apex court taking into account this submission, allowed the petition and fixed date of counting on February 27.