SUPREME COURT RESERVES ORDER ON EVM-VVPAT VERIFICATION, SAYS ‘WE CANNOT CONTROL THE ELECTION…’

The Supreme Court of India (SC) on April 24, reserved judgment on EVM-VVPAT verification plea. During the hearing, the court observed that it cannot control elections, which are to be conducted by another constitutional authority. The judgement comes as the phase two of Lok Sabha Elections 2024 is about to take place on April 26.

A bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta, which had reserved its verdict on a batch of pleas seeking complete cross-verification of votes cast using EVMs with Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) on April 18, had said it needs clarification on certain aspects as there was some confusion in answers given by the EC in its 'frequently asked questions' (FAQs) on EVMs.

During the hearing, Supreme Court Judge Datta highlighted to advocate Prashant Bhushan that no incidence of malicious program loading with the symbol had been reported.

“Till date there is no report of any such incident (malicious program being loaded along with the symbol). We cannot control the election Mr Bhushan, we cannot control another constitutional authority,” Justice Datta said.

Justice Khanna assured, “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.” The SC also added that whenever the apex court asked for suggestion to improve the voting process, the submissions read ‘go back to ballot papers’.

The order came during the apex court's hearing of a clutch of petitions seeking complete cross-verification of votes cast using EVMs. 

NGO 'Association for Democratic Reforms' (ADR), one of the petitioners, sought reversal of the poll panel's 2017 decision to replace the transparent glass on VVPAT machines with an opaque glass through which a voter can see the slip only when the light is on for seven seconds.

The plea also demand that voters be allowed a canopy of the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) produced by EVM machines after each vote.

Earlier this morning, the SC bench comprising Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Dutta had posed questions regarding the functions of the microcontroller installed in the EVMs, securing the EVMs and VVPATs, and the maximum period for which the machines are to be retained. It had asked for a senior EC officer to be present for the hearing at 2 pm.

The bench's statement comes after the apex court reserved its order in the matter on April 18.

2024-04-24T09:35:38Z dg43tfdfdgfd