Chennai: As counting of votes for election to the Bar Council of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry is on, a controversy has erupted over the presence of 47 excess votes found inside a sealed ballot box from Tirupur district.A group of lawyers staged a protest near the Madras high court on Tuesday, demanding an inquiry into the issue. Three candidates — advocates G Mohanakrishnan, Ashok and D Saravanan — made a representation to the High-Power Election Committee appointed by Supreme Court to conduct the election, headed by former Chief Justice Rajiv Shakdher of Himachal Pradesh high court.The lawyers wanted the committee to conduct a probe and demanded action against those responsible for the irregularity. Demanding a re-poll in Tirupur, they said, “Till then, the counting of votes in Tirupur must be stopped. The votes secured by the candidates there shall not be considered as a valid vote until a final conclusion is arrived on this issue.”Returning officer and former judge of Madras high court Justice K N Basha ruled out malpractice and said, “Clearly nothing wrong happened. It was a small error; duplicates of 47 ballot papers were added inadvertently. The error was noticed by Tirupur district election observer and polling officer. They segregated the duplicate unused ballot papers and bundled them separately before sending it to Chennai for counting.““As we (officers in Chennai) are not aware of the same, it came to light only during counting. We informed the representatives of the candidates present and stopped counting. We offered an explanation for almost half a day, and the unused duplicate ballot papers were removed,” he said. “Now counting process has resumed. The entire process is live-streamed. There is no possibility of malpractice,” he added.
