Amid controversy surrounding the forgery of the ballot papers in the Bar Council of Delhi elections and subsequently ruckus created by some candidates who had already been eliminated had entered the counting area forcefully, the Election Committee has issued a notice that the 88 candidates and/or their representatives who have been eliminated are banned from entering the counting area on the 6th Floor of S-Block of Delhi High Court premises.
The controversy surfaced during what should have been a routine phase of the counting process. The Bar Council elections, contested by 221 candidates, were held across three days in February 2026, with counting commencing on March 7 at the seventh floor of the S-Block, Delhi High Court. The process follows a preferential voting system, under which candidates with the least votes are progressively eliminated. It was during the elimination of the 80th candidate on April 15 that election officials made a disturbing discovery, multiple ballot papers showed signs of deliberate manipulation.
The alleged modus operandi was surgical in its precision: the digit '2' marking a voter's second preference had been converted into '12' by prefixing the numeral '1', effectively erasing the original second preference and substituting a fresh one in favour of Ballot No. 132, advocate Vishnu Sharma. An internal inquiry conducted by the Election Committee swiftly identified one Nikhil Kumar, aged 24, of Ramesh Nagar, New Delhi, appointed as counting staff, as the alleged architect of the manipulation. Kumar was produced before police the same evening.
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