Result unchanged, but vote recount puts SC Bar Association under cloud

NEW DELHI: Supreme Court on Monday ordered a recount of votes cast in the election to the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) following a spate of challenges, a development that is seen as taking away from the aura of the country's premier bar body.

A partial working day (PWD) bench of Justices Surya Kant and Dipankar Datta found itself dealing with a barrage of challenges from various groups supporting different candidates since morning on Monday. Exasperated, the bench asked election committee chairperson and senior advocate Vijay Hansaria to do a recounting of votes for the president's post.

"We will ensure that the elections are free and fair," the bench said. Hansaria apprised the bench about undertaking recounting of votes because of certain errors in counting.

Senior advocate Vikas Singh was declared president in the poll with a tally of 1,048 votes. Pradeep Rai and Adish Aggarwala finished first and second with 834 and 683 votes, respectively. A recount, prompted by challenges to the result and done in the presence of the SC registrar, returned the following result - Singh 1,051; Rai 825 and Aggarwala 611.

Thus, the results announced earlier - Singh as president - remained unaffected but the vote tally of Aggarwala, who was warned against browbeating the election committee by the Justice Kant-led bench on Monday, came down by 72.