Karnataka 2023 recount case: ECI's rules on how long it keeps election CCTV footage, and who is allowed to see it

The Supreme Court on Wednesday pulled up the Election Commission of India (ECI) after the poll body said it could not trace the video recording of the 2023 vote count in Karnataka's Sringeri assembly constituency.

Congress MLA TD Rajegowda had sought the footage after a recount ordered by the Karnataka high court overturned his 201-vote win over the BJP's DN Jeevaraj.

A bench of justices Sanjay Kumar and Sanjeev Sachdeva said it would "not accept these kinds of lame excuses" and warned that if the ECI did not produce whatever records it has, it would draw an adverse inference against the commission.

This is not the first time the ECI has faced questions over election footage. Since December 2024, norms over who may inspect recordings and cut how long ECI keeps them have been narrowed.

Also Read | 2023 Karnataka count: Supreme Court slams poll body for missing footage

What do the ECI's guidelines say?

Until 2025, the ECI's retention periods depended on the stage of the election. Footage:

- From the period before nominations was kept for three months

- Of nominations, withdrawal and scrutiny for one year

- Of the campaign for six months

- Of polling day and the counting of votes for one year each.

But instructions issued on May 30, 2025 modified the norms set in 2024. Since then, electoral videos and photographs are generally retained for 45 days after results are declared, following which they may be destroyed.

The rule does not apply to an election that faces a legal challenge. In such cases, the footage is not to be destroyed.

The ECI says it records CCTV footage as an internal management tool.

The commission says that under the Representation of the People Act, 1951, a result can be challenged in court only within 45 days of the winner being declared, and this is why it keeps footage for the same period. Footage kept longer, it says, could be misused. Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar has also cited voters’ privacy as a reason not to make recordings public.

Also Read | SC to hear plea on October 28 against ECI move to enrol deleted Delhi voters as new ones

Law ministry amendment

Rule 93 of the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961, governs who can inspect election records. Before December 2024, Rule 93(2)(a) said: “All other papers relating to the election shall be open to public inspection.” In practice, candidates, parties and citizens relied on this wording to seek material the rules did not explicitly name, including video recordings.

In December 2024, the Union law ministry amended the rule on the ECI's recommendation by inserting five words. It now reads: “...all other papers as specified in these rules relating to the election shall be open to public inspection.”

Thereby, only papers named in the rules were made available for inspections, which exclude CCTV footage, webcasting footage or video recordings of candidates.

The ECI also argued that supplying electronic recordings required substantial manpower and was an impractical burden on election officials after polling.

The amendment came in the same month that the Punjab and Haryana high court, on December 9, directed the ECI to give advocate Mehmood Pracha documents relating to the Haryana assembly election.

Jairam Ramesh, a Congress leader and Rajya Sabha MP, had challenged the amendment in the Supreme Court. His counsel argued that CCTV footage could not reveal voting choices.

On January 15, 2025, a bench of then Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar issued notice to the Union government and the ECI. The court later tagged a similar petition by RTI activist Anjali Bhardwaj with Ramesh’s.