A petition has been filed in Supreme Court seeking directions to the Election Committee to hold the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) elections 2021 by physical mode through secret ballot. SCBA polls are scheduled to be held by virtual mode on February 27.
The plea has been filed by an advocate Pradeep Kumar Yadav. He is one of the candidates running for the post of SCBA treasurer.
The plea mentioned that online voting is impractical and a huge sum of money of the innocent members of SCBA is going to be misused for hiring services of an agency (to conduct the elections).
“What is the mechanism used by the agency to identify the real voter or no proxy voting will be done, how it will be done and how it can make sure that there will be no mismanagement is a debatable. It is requested before this Hon’ble court to direct the respondent /s to conduct the election strictly as pre the Bye-Law No. 17 of the Supreme Court Bar Association,” the plea said.
Yadav further submitted that the lawyers have gone back to their respective native places and there is remote possibility for them to access the internet and virtual mode of elections is not practical and if they don’t vote their valuable right will be vanished.
SCBA has announced February 27 as the date of elections which could be held either through online mode or through the hybrid mode of physical and online voting.
Bar Association took the decision following an advice from All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi to conduct SCBA elections 2021 online in view of the COVID-19. Following a request from the Additional Registrar of the Supreme Court, a team from AIIMS paid a visit to the apex court premises.
After the visit, the AIIMS team suggested, “In view of the probability of spread of Covid in large congregation and feasibility of elections to be conducted on secure online platform, it is desirable that the elections are done on online platform only.”
