The Supreme Court, in its session on Thursday, deferred its decision on a series of public interest litigations (PILs) that call for a directive to the Election Commission of India (ECI) to enforce mandatory cross-verification of votes cast in Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) with Voter-Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) slips.
The bench, led by Justice Sanjiv Khanna, noted the presumption of validity attached to official acts under the Indian Evidence Act, suggesting that not every action undertaken by the electoral body should be questioned.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing the Central government, criticized the petitioners for their repeated PIL filings just before elections, arguing that such actions trivialize the democratic process. The bench, also comprising Justice Dipankar Datta, acknowledged the longstanding nature of the petitions and the challenges posed by workload in their adjudication.
Mehta further pointed out the Supreme Court's prior dismissal of similar pleas, indicating that the matter had already been settled.
During the hearing, senior advocate Maninder Singh, representing the ECI, refuted media reports alleging EVM malfunction during mock polling in Kerala’s Kasaragod, asserting them to be entirely false.
Earlier in the day, advocate Prashant Bhushan directed the court's attention to a recent news article where agents of various political candidates alleged irregularities favoring the BJP during EVM setup for polling.
Responding to this, the bench requested the ECI’s counsel to investigate the matter.
In April 2019, the Supreme Court mandated the ECI to increase the number of VVPAT slips from one per Assembly constituency to five, along with issuing guidelines for the compulsory verification of VVPAT slips from five randomly selected polling stations after the final round of EVM vote counting. VVPAT serves as an independent verification system, enabling voters to confirm the accuracy of their votes.
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