SC Dismisses Plea Seeking Re-Election To Loksabha Using Ballot Paper

The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed a PIL by Advocate M. L. Sharma seeking the cancellation of the recent Lok Sabha elections, alleging the use of electronic voting machines (EVMs) as unconstitutional.

Reportedly, the petitioner questioned provisions under 61 A of the Representation of the People Act, arguing that the voting machines should not have been allowed in the recently concluded elections. The petitioner sought a re-election through paper ballot. 

'What do you want us to do? Set aside the whole General Election?', the bench headed by Justice Rohinton Nariman expressed its incredulity at the prayers on Friday, proceeding to reject the plea.

Earlier, the top court had heard a petition filed by leaders from 21 political parties seeking a direction to the Election Commission of India (ECI) to randomly verify at least 50 per cent votes using Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trails (VVPATs) in the polls to 17th Lok Sabha.

The petition challenged the decision of ECI to verify VVPAT of only one randomly selected booth of a constituency. It was argued that this will account only for 0.44% of the votes polled. This guideline defeats the entire purpose of VVPAT and makes the same "ornamental" without actual substance, they stated.

The court had in April raised the VVPAT physical verification from 1 to 5 EVMs in each assembly segment of a parliamentary constituency.

Subsequently, the court had refused to review its order even on the petitioners' submission that they had prayed for 50% manual verification of the paper trail, and that though the judges agreed with them on principle, the order is only to the extent of 2%, and that they would be happy with even 25 or 33%.