May 07, 2019
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court rejected a petition filed by 21 Opposition parties seeking to verify at least 50% of Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) slips with Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) in the ongoing Lok Sabha elections.
The bench headed by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi refused to review its earlier judgment wherein it directed the Election Commission to increase matching of VVPAT slips with EVMs from one to five polling stations per assembly seat.
The parties had sought a review of this order as it only raised the random verification from 0.44 to a “mere 2%”. They claimed this “will not make any substantial difference to the situation that existed prior to the passing of the impugned order”.
Appearing for the Opposition parties, Senior Advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi urged the court to raise the VVPAT verification with EVMS to at least 25%.
The Opposition parties moved Court after reports of defective EVMs emerged after the first phase of the Lok Sabha elections. In some cases, it was reported, voters would cast their vote for a party but the EVM would record their vote for another party.
The Election Commission had contended that the results would be delayed by six days if the parties’ demand was met.
The petitioners in the case include Chandrababu Naidu of the TDP, Sharad Chandra Pawar of the NCP, Congress leader K C Venugopal, Trinamool Congress leader Derek O’Brien, Sharad Yadav of the Loktantrik Janata Dal, SP leader Akhilesh Yadav, Satish Chandra Mishra of the BSP, DMK leader M K Stalin, AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal and National Congress leader Farooq Abdullah.
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