PT’s plea to defer counting of votes rejected

Slamming the plea as a bid to jump on the publicity bandwagon, the first bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy, said “For a start the prayer made in the petition of April 21, is absurd and is ridiculous to seek a Supreme Court judge to enquire into the matter The Chief Justice also sought the Puthiya Tamilagam president to refrain from indulging in such frivolous exercise in the future.

However, the bench while dismissing the PIL also held that the votes need to be counted by adopting appropriate methods and steps taken to ensure that the COVID protocol is maintained. The PIL had sought for a direction to the ECI to stop counting of votes as the election had transpired based on money for votes by political parties in all the Constituencies and hence the same ought to be probed by a Supreme Court judge.