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The Supreme Court on Monday issued a notice to the Election Commission regarding plea demanding 100% VVPATs counting. Calling it a first step, Senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh sought the decision in the matter before elections commence.
“It bears constant repetition that the Election Commission has refused to meet a delegation of INDIA party leaders who have been demanding 100% VVPATs in order to increase public confidence in EVMs and to ensure the integrity of the electoral process," wrote Jairam Ramesh on X.
“The notice is an important first step, but for it to be meaningful, the matter should be decided before the elections commence,” he added.
The order in the case was passed by the SC bench of justices BR Gavai and Sandeep Mehta. The petition sought inter-alia counting of all Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) paper slips in polls. While announcing order, the bench tagged the petition with another plea filed by Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR).
Earlier, in a similar petition filed by the ADR, the EC had cited practical difficulties in verifying all VVPATs. The bench hearing the matter also expressed reservations about the demand of 100% VVPAT verification, observing that it will add to the ECI's burden without much significant advantage.
The petition contended, “If simultaneous verification is done and more number of officers are deployed for counting in each assembly constituency, then complete VVPAT verification can be done in matter of 5-6 hours.”
The petition was filed through advocate Neha Rathi. In her petition, Rathi stated that the government has spent ₹5000 crores on the purchase of 24 lakh VVPATs, but VVPAT slips of only 20,000 VVPATs are verified (approx)
"Given that many questions are being raised by experts with regard to VVPATs and EVMs and the fact that large number of discrepancies between EVM and VVPAT vote count have been reported in the past, it is imperative that all VVPATs slips are counted and the voter is given an opportunity to properly verify that his vote as cast in the ballot is also counted by allowing him to physically drop his/her VVPAT slip on the ballot box," the plea added.
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