The Supreme Court of India
Credit: PTI File Photo
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday issued notice to the Election Commission on a plea seeking complete count of VVPAT slips in elections as opposed to the current practice of verification of only five randomly selected EVMs through VVPAT paper slips.
A bench of Justices B R Gavai and Sandeep Mehta sought a response from the poll panel and the Union government on a plea filed by lawyer and activist Arun Kumar Agrawal, a resident of Ramnagara in Karnataka, through advocate Neha Rathi.
"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 said.
The petition further challenged the EC's guideline which mandated that VVPAT verification shall be done sequentially, i.e. one after the other, causing undue delay.
It contended that 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 a matter of five-six hours.
The plea stated that while the government has spent nearly Rs 5,000 crore on purchase of nearly 24 lakh VVPATs, presently VVPAT slips of only approximately 20,000 is verified.
"Democracy is a part of the basic structure of our Constitution and rule of law and free and fair election are basic features of democracy....The voter has right under Article 19 and 21 to cross verify his vote as cast by him and counted by paper vote of VVPAT in accordance with the purport and object of directions of this Court in Subramanian Swamy case (2013)," the plea said.
It also asked the court to issue a direction to make the glass of the VVPAT machine transparent and duration of the light long enough for the voter to see the paper recording his vote cut and drop into the drop box.
The plea said, "The cross-verification and counting of all VVPAT slips is essential to the interest of democracy and the principle that elections must not only be free and fair, but also be seen to be free."