The Returning Officer or any officer authorised by him, on the date, time and place fixed under rule 32, shall start the counting of votes in the following manner, namely:-
(i) the counting of votes for the office/seats of Gram Panchayat shall take place at the headquarters of Gram Panchayat and for the members of panchayat Samiti and Zila Parishad at the Block headquarters as per election programme;
(ii) the Returning Officer or such other Officer as may be authorised by him in this behalf shal1 take out the ballot box 37 constituency-wise according to serial number and allow opportunity to candidates or their election agent to inspect the ballot box(es) and the seals to satisfy themselves that they are intact;
(iii) after each ballot box is opened, the candidates or the election agents, who may be present, shall be allowed to inspect the ballot box and satisfy themselves that it bears the proper labels inside the ballot box;
(iv) all the ballot papers in each box shall be taken out and the empty box be shown to the candidates or the election agents for their satisfaction that no ballot paper has been left inside the box ;
(v) the ballot papers taken out of each box shall be mixed up with other ballot papers taken out of other ballot boxes concerning the same office and after that shall be sorted out separately for each seat/office. The ballot paper for the members of Gram Panchayat shall be retained on the same tables and ballot papers for the office of Pradhan and Up-Pradhan shall be passed on without counting them to the Returning Officer for their counting at later stage. After the counting the result of members of Gram Panchayat shall be declared on Form 33 after preparing the result sheet on Form 32. After the declaration of result of all the members of the Gram Panchayat, the counting for the offices of Up-Pradhan/Pradhan shall be taken and result declared on Form 35 after preparing result-sheet on Form 34;
(vi) the ballot papers taken out of boxes after mixing up with other ballot boxes concerning the election for each office shall be sorted out separately for members, Panchayat Samiti and Zila Parishad at Block level. The ballot papers for the seat of members of Panchayat Samiti shall be retained on the same table and the ballot papers for the seat of members, Zila Parishad shall be passed on the another tables without counting them after telling with the Ballot Paper account. Counting for the seat of members, Panchayat Samiti shall be taken up first and the result of the members Panchayat Samiti shall be declared on Form 37 after preparing result sheet on Form 36, After this counting for the member, Zila Parishad shall be taken up and result of counting of votes of members of Zila Parishad shall be prepared on Form 38 Part-I. The ballot paper account alongwith Form 38 Part-I and ballot paper in the sealed envelope shall be sent to the District Election Officer (Panchayats) who after compiling the Form 38 Part-I received from each block, prepare the result sheet in Form 38 part-II and then declare the result on Form 39:
38 1 [Provided that the declaration of results on Forms 33, 35, 37 and 39 shall be made only after a reasonable opportunity for exercise of right to recount has been given under rule 79 to the candidate or his election agent or his counting agent.]