The Supreme Court on Friday directed the Election Commission to ensure that video recordings of polling are preserved while the challenge to the poll panel’s decision to increase the number of voters per polling station is pending, Live Law reported.

A bench of Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar gave the direction while hearing a public interest litigation challenging the Election Commission’s decision in August to increase the maximum number of electors per polling station from 1,200 to 1,500.

The court granted the Election Commission additional time to file its reply and directed it to ensure that the video recordings of polling are preserved while the matter was pending.

In the previous hearing, advocate Abhishek Singhvi, appearing for the petitioner, had argued that the move would create challenges for electors and amounted to an act of voter disenfranchisement.

The Election Commission’s decision could lead to the exclusion of underprivileged groups from the polling process as they may not be able to carve out the spare disproportionate time from their daily schedules to cast their ballots, Singhvi had argued.

The petitioner argued that the Commission’s decision was not supported by data. There has been no Census since 2011 and therefore, there is no fresh data to guide the panel’s decision, the petitioner pointed out.

“By increasing this limit [voters per polling station], the [Election Commission] has compromised the operational efficiency of polling stations, potentially leading to longer waiting times, overcrowding and voter fatigue,” Live Law had quoted the petitioner as saying in December.

The petitioner has claimed that it takes 60 seconds to 90 seconds for each elector to vote, which would mean that only 495 to 660 persons can vote during an 11-hour election period.

The petitioner said that there must be a proportional expansion in the number of polling booths to accommodate the growing number of voters.

On January 15, the Supreme Court had also asked the Election Commission and the Union government to respond to a petition filed by Congress leader Jairam Ramesh challenging the recent amendment to the 1961 Conduct of Elections Rules.

The changes to the rules, first reported by Scroll, restricted public access to election-related records that include security camera footage from polling stations.