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May 10, 2026
In a significant development, the Supreme Court on Friday ordered the Election Commission of India (ECI) to preserve video recordings of polling while hearing a plea against the recent decision to raise the maximum number of voters per polling station from 1,200 to 1,500. A bench led by Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar passed the directive after the counsel representing the ECI sought additional time to respond to the Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by Indu Prakash Singh.
The petitioner has challenged the ECI’s August 2024 communication, arguing that increasing the number of voters per polling station could lead to logistical challenges and compromise the electoral process. With this order, the Supreme Court has ensured that critical polling footage remains intact while the matter is under judicial review.
“The counsel appearing for respondent number 1 prays for further time to file an affidavit. Let the affidavit be filed within three weeks from today. We deem it appropriate to direct respondent no 1 to maintain the CCTV recordings as they were doing earlier,” the bench said.
The top court on January 15 sought responses from the Centre and the poll panel on the Congress party’s plea against the recent amendments, including no public access to CCTV, to the 1961 election rules. Singh said the decision to increase the number of voters per polling booth was arbitrary and not based on any data.
