CCTV Footage Destroyed: ECI on 2024 Lok Sabha Election in Delhi

Key Points

The Election Commission of India (ECI) has revealed that all CCTV and video footage of the 2024 Lok Sabha Election from Delhi has been destroyed. The ECI made the announcement on Wednesday, 12 November 2025, at a Delhi High Court hearing concerning a Public interest Litigation (PIL) filed by advocate Mehmood Pracha.

Pracha had sought footage from the election process to be preserved for scrutiny. The ECI stated that the data had been deleted by all seven District Election Officers (DEOs) in line with a notice issued by the commission on 30 May 2025. The notice revised guidelines for the election data retention/deletion process.

“The footage sought by the petitioner is no longer available with the DEOs and has already been destroyed,” advocate Sandeep Sethi, counsel to the ECI, told Justice Mini Pushkarna. He argued that this step was taken to prevent misuse of the data on social media.

Pracha, on the other hand, said that since his PIL was pending in court, the ECI was obligated to have preserved the data, citing instructions from the Handbook for Returning Officers, 2023. He argued that the revised notice issued by the commission was “solely to defeat the pending petition”.

Justice Pushkarna observed that Pracha had not challenged the revised guideline issued by the ECI. “Noting the aforesaid, no orders can be passed by this Court in the present application, for the time being. Accordingly, the present application is disposed of,” the court order read. The next hearing has been scheduled for 13 February 2026.

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Mehmood Pracha vs ECI: Context

Pracha had filed his plea in the Delhi High Court in April 2024, prior to Phase 1 polling in the Lok Sabha Election. He had sought to preserve data from the election process.

The move followed a case in January 2024, when CCTV footage had exposed a presiding officer tampering with votes during the Chandigarh Mayoral Election. The video showed the officer counting false votes to favour a BJP candidate. The SC summarily overturned the results of the election, declaring the runner-up AAP candidate the winner. Later, in December 2024, the Centre amended the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961, so that not all election-related documents could be availed by the public.

The 2024 Lok Sabha Election was fraught with allegations of rigging. Prior to polling, Pracha had sought the preservation of video evidence of the election process, and in subsequent hearings had requested the evidence be made accessible.

In 2025, the ECI continued to file counter-affidavits against the petition, before amending its evidence preservation guidelines in May 2025.

Since then, the Opposition has raised several charges of ‘vote chori’ in the Lok Sabha and other State elections, alleging collusion between the ECI and the BJP. The ECI has dismissed the allegations, but at the same time made it harder for citizens to scrutinize public election data. The SC has had to direct the commission to make a lot of this data public in the first place.

The decision to delete video evidence of the 2024 election process, was made despite the process being challenged in court. The ECI’s guidelines themselves stated that “CCTV coverage and videography is preserved for a period of forty-five (45) days after declaration of result or till adjudication of the Election Petition, whichever is late.”

And with the ongoing Bihar Assembly Election, the nationwide SIR exercise, and allegations of ‘vote chori’, this decision only casts further doubt on the integrity of the election process. [Rh]

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