In a notable development, the Supreme Court has taken action by requesting responses from both the Election Commission and the Central government regarding a plea advocating for a comprehensive count of VVPAT slips in elections. This plea challenges the existing practice of verifying only five randomly chosen EVMs through VVPAT paper slips.
Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) serves as an independent system for verifying votes, enabling voters to confirm if their vote was accurately recorded. This system generates a paper slip visible to the voter, which is then securely stored and can be accessed in case of disputes.
Previously, on April 8, 2019, the apex court had directed the Election Commission to increase the number of EVMs subjected to VVPAT physical verification from one to five per assembly segment in a parliamentary constituency.
A bench consisting of Justices B R Gavai and Sandeep Mehta acknowledged the arguments presented by lawyers representing activist Arun Kumar Agrawal, who seeks a full count of VVPAT slips as opposed to the current practice. The court issued notices to the Election Commission (EC) and the central government, with a potential hearing scheduled for May 17.
Senior lawyer Gopal Sankaranarayanan and advocate Neha Rathi represented Agrawal in this matter.
The plea contested the EC's guideline mandating sequential VVPAT verification, proposing that simultaneous verification could expedite the process, allowing for complete VVPAT verification within a few hours with additional officer deployment.
The plea highlighted the significant expenditure incurred by the government in procuring VVPATs, yet only a fraction of VVPAT slips are currently verified. Given concerns raised by experts regarding VVPATs and EVMs, along with numerous reported discrepancies between EVM and VVPAT vote counts, the plea emphasizes the importance of counting all VVPAT slips. It insists that voters should have the opportunity to physically verify that their vote was correctly recorded by depositing their VVPAT slip in the ballot box.
The Supreme Court issued the notice and tagged it with existing matters concerning the issue.
