New Delhi, Oct. 15 -- The Supreme Court on Wednesday took serious exception to the Election Commission of India's claim that it could not trace the video recording of the 2023 vote count in Karnataka's Sringeri assembly constituency, warning that it would draw an adverse inference against the poll body if it failed to produce the available records. "How can the Election Commission of India (ECI) say that it has lost its record? Your whole purpose is to hold an election, and you need to have a document. Where is the question of you saying, 'Yeah, we are trying to trace it'? You gave it to the elected candidate. There is no custody of records. Whatever you have, produce it on the next date. Otherwise, we will have to draw an adverse inference against you. We will not accept these kinds of lame excuses," a bench of justices Sanjay Kumar and Sanjeev Sachdeva told ECI. The court was hearing a plea by Congress leader TD Rajegowda, who was unseated earlier this year following a recount of postal ballots in the constituency, where he had defeated Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate DN Jeevaraj by a narrow margin of 201 votes in the 2023 assembly elections. Rajegowda remains an MLA after the top court allowed him to continue while it examined the case. The bench pulled up ECI over its inability to trace the original counting footage after Rajegowda sought access to the election observer's report and video recordings of both the original counting in 2023 and the recount conducted in May, 2026. When the court proposed directing the poll body to produce these records, senior advocate Seshadri Naidu, appearing for ECI, said the video recording of the original counting could not be traced. The submission failed to convince the bench, which asked the commission to produce whatever records were available by the next hearing. The court posted the matter for February 15, 2027....