General Election 2024: Plea In Madras High Court Urges 100% Counting Of VVPAT Printout Slips Attached To EVMs

When the case was taken up by the bench of Chief Justice SV Gangapurwala and Justice Bharatha Chakravarthy, the counsel for the Election Commission sought for an adjournment and the case has been posted to January 19^th.

The petitioner, Packiaraj, an advocate by profession, submitted that to uphold democratic principles of free and fair elections and to ensure full transparency of the election process, it was important to count 100% of VVPAT printout slips attached with the EVMs for the ensuing April/May general elections.

Packiaraj submitted that when he had earlier filed a similar petition during the 2019 and 2021 election, it was dismissed by the court taking note of the Chief Election Commissioner's announcement that they were ready for 100% use of VVPAT. However, he informed the court that 30 days before the election, the Election Commission issued a circular to all the State Electoral Officers to count only 1% of the VVPAT printed slips. Upon challenge by the opposition parties, the Supreme Court directed the Commission to count printed slips in 5% of booths. Thus, he submitted that even the Supreme Court had considered the importance of VVPAT.

Packiaraj added that the VVPAT printed slips serve as an alternative means of verification and are helpful when there are claims of EVM manipulation. He added that though he had submitted representations to consider full counting of the VVPAT printout slips, no response had been received yet.

It was also submitted that even countries like Japan, which had invented the EVMs and the VVPATs had found that only VVPAT printed slip counting yielded 100% error-free results and the countries had stopped counting votes using EVMs and were now exclusively relying on VVPAT printed slips.

Packiaraj also submitted that neglecting to count all the printed slips would negate the purpose of its installation and allow elections to be influenced by marginal victories with erratic numbers. He added that a voter-verified “paper trail” audit was a fault-free procedure and it was necessary to count 100% of the VVPAT printed slips to make the election process doubt-free.

Case Title: S Packiaraj v The Election Commission of India

Case No: WP 34893 of 2023