SC rejects Opposition's plea, refuses to increase VVPAT-EVM verification
In a major blow to Opposition parties, the Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to increase VVPAT verification of EVMs to 50%. As of now, votes in only a few Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) are verified through a paper trail. Notably, 21 opposition parties had approached the top court with their request and said increasing VVPAT verification would make elections fairer. Here's more.
Earlier, SC ordered EC to increase paper trail verification
On April 8, SC directed the Election Commission to increase EVM-VVPAT verification from one EVM to 5 EVMs per assembly constituency. These EVMs will be randomly selected. Though this process is tedious, it leaves little room for discrepancy. Once a voter casts the vote, the VVPAT (which is attached to EVM) prints details. The printed slip contains the name of the candidate and party.
Opposition parties said 2% increase won't solve anything
However, 21 Opposition parties had asked the top court to review its order. The parties, through their lawyer Abhishek Manu Singhvi, told SC that 50% votes should be verified by VVPATs. The petitioners told the court a mere 2% increase in the paper trail verification wouldn't make much of a difference. The order didn't do much to address their grievances, Singhvi told the court.
But, SC said it isn't inclined to modify order
Now, Singhvi told the court that the petitioners would be happy even if 33% of EVMs are verified by VVPATs. Soon, he brought down the figure to 25%. But the bargaining didn't strike a chord with the apex court. Junking the plea, the bench including Justices Deepak Gupta and Sanjiv Khanna said, "We are not inclined to modify our order."
EC had said it needed more people to increase verification
Interestingly, this is the first time VVPATs are being used in Lok Sabha polls. Till now, they were only restricted to assembly elections. EC had told SC that infrastructure and workforce constraints stopped it from adding more VVPATs for verification. The polling watchdog said it would need a team of three officers for verifying slips. Let's see how Opposition reacts to this order now.
