KOCHI: The High Court has ordered the Election Commission to investigate the case in which a ballot box containing postal votes in the Perinthalmanna assembly constituency went missing. It also directed the Election Commission to submit a report within four weeks. EC should investigate various things such as how the box which was kept safely in the Perinthalmanna sub-treasury reached the Malappuram cooperative society joint registrar's office, who all are the officials responsible for this and whether the packet containing the postal ballots was tampered with.

Justice A Badaruddin issued the order on a petition filed by Najeeb Kanthapuram seeking a probe by Election Commission into the incident. The court allowed the parties to open the ballot box and inspect the election documents in the courtroom at 2 pm on February 23.