Plea For 100% EVM-VVPAT Verification : Supreme Court Seeks Clarifications From ECI | LIVE UPDATES
The Supreme Court will pass orders today on petitions seeking complete verification of the votes recorded in the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) with Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) slips.A bench comprising Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta will pronounce the order at 10. 30 AM. The bench had reserved the judgment on April 18.During the hearing, the bench...
The Supreme Court will pass orders today on petitions seeking complete verification of the votes recorded in the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) with Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) slips.
A bench comprising Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta will pronounce the order at 10. 30 AM. The bench had reserved the judgment on April 18.
During the hearing, the bench extensively interacted with an official from the Election Commission of India (ECI) to understand the working of the EVMs and VVPATs and their security features. The ECI asserted that the EVMs cannot be tampered with under any circumstance and that the complete counting of the VVPAT slips was not practically feasible.
The writ petitions have been filed by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), Abhay Bhakchand Chhajed and Arun Kumar Aggarwal.
The petitioners, stressing that the measures to increase the confidence of the voters must be adopted, argued that a few days delay in the declaration of results in a small price to pay for the larger goal of fair and transparent election process. During the hearing, the bench also orally expressed reservations about the manual counting process, saying that human interventions can lead to problems.
As per the current practice, the ECI randmoly verifies the VVPAT slips of EVMs from five polling booths per assembly segment in a Parliamentary constituency. This is in terms of a direction passed by the Supreme Court in 2019 which directed the ECI to increase the verification from one polling booth to five polling booths per assembly segment.
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Justice Khanna : We are not rehearing on merits. We wanted certain clarifications..
Bench dictates order : The matter was listed for directions in view of certain queries. Answers have been given. Judgment reserved.
Adv Varun Thakur : Technical person is not accountable...
Hegde : We are not asking for a return to paper ballot. We are only asking for a paper confirmation.
Hegde : Bar Code is just one more image, if it is put, it will greatly help the process.
J Khanna : How can it help the process? If there is any automatic counter to count the bar code...
Sr Adv Sanjay Hegde makes a suggestion of a unique bar code for each candidate.
Justice Khanna : If there is something to improve, we can certainly improve. Courts intervened twice. Once, when we said VVPAT should be mandatorily. Second time, when we increased from one to five.
Justice Datta : When we ask what are the improvements which could be done, the first submission was go back to ballot papers.
Justice Khanna : This is not a rehearing. After going through the FAQs, we had some queries, my brother had some queries, so we just put them across.
Justice Khanna : Consequences are provided if somebody does something wrong. Also, the report cited (by petitioners) says "doubtful". They themselves are not sure.
Justice Datta : Can we issue a mandamus on the basis of a suspicion?
Sr Adv Santhosh Paul : There are softwares available in this country to rig....
Justice Datta : Out of the 5% VVPATs counted, any candidate can show if there is any mismatch.