Supreme Court Stays Sringeri Recount Results Favouring BJP's DN Jeevaraja, Restores Congress' TD Rajegowada As MLA

The Supreme Court today stayed the effect of the recount exercise in the Sringeri Assembly constituency in Karnataka, which resulted in BJP's DN Jeevaraja being sworn in as the MLA from the constituency.

Hearing an appeal filed by Congress member TD Rajegowda, who got unseated as the MLA after the recount, the Court directed restoration of status quo ante (state of affairs before the recount), observing that the Returning Officer's exercise of reverifying already validated postal ballots was prima facie invalid.

In the appeal before the Supreme Court, Rajegowda argued that, though the High Court had only ordered the re-verification of 279 rejected postal ballots, the Returning Officer also recounted 562 valid postal ballots that were in Rajegowda's favour.

Prima facie finding merit in his argument, the bench of Justice Sanjay Kumar and Justice K Vinod Chandran ordered:

"As per the material placed before us, the Returning Officer deducted 248 postal votes cast in favour of the petitioner (Rajegowda) from out of the 562 postal votes earlier counted in this favour and 2 postal votes were added to the earlier 689 postal votes earlier polled for the respondent no. 1 (Jeevaraja). On the strength of this exercise, which went beyond the scope of what was ordered, we are informed that certain steps have been taken. As such steps are prima facie without a foundation, we are of the opinion that interference is required by this court", the Court stated.

Issuing notice on Rajegowda's appeal, the Court ordered:

"All steps taken in pursuance of the aforestated exercise undertaken by the returning officer shall remain in abeyance till the appeal is decided. Such order requires restoration of status quo ante and steps shall be taken to affect the same.”

This would affect the recent declaration of Jeevaraj as the winning candidate in the 2023 Assembly election and his subsequent swearing-in as MLA, and restore Congress candidate TD Rajegowda who had originally been declared elected.

BJP candidate DN Jeevaraj challenged the result before the Karnataka High Court. The election dispute continued for nearly three years and culminated in an April 2026 order directing recount of postal ballots. Rajegowda filed the present appeal against this order of the High Court.

Pursuant to the High Court's order, a recount exercise was conducted on May 2, 2026, resulting in several postal votes cast in favour of Rajegowda being treated as invalid. Following the recount, Jeevaraj was declared elected on May 3, 2026, with a margin of 52 votes.

Today, the Supreme Court ordered that all steps taken pursuant to the recount exercise would remain in abeyance till the appeal is decided.

While Senior Advocate V Giri for Jeevaraja vehemently opposed this order, the bench was not persuaded. Justice Sanjay Kumar remarked that the situation created after the recount could not be allowed to stand merely because subsequent steps had already been taken.

“Fail accompli is not going to be…this will have to be reversed,” he said.

Justice K Vinod Chandran said, “There is no question of reverification of already validated postal ballots.”

Justice Kumar also noted that the Giri had not disputed that valid postal ballots were subjected to reverification during the recount process.

“You didn't deny that the reverification of valid postal ballots was undertaken...When the entire process itself is taken for a ride then we can't do anything,” he remarked.

The Court kept the matter for further hearing on May 21st.

Senior Advocates Kapil Sibal, Mukul Rohatgi, and Devadatt Kamat along with Advocate on Record Tushar Giri represented Rajegowda.

Case no. – C.A. No. 7369/2026

Case Title – TD Rajegowda v. DN Jeevaraja