SC Rejects Review Plea Of 21 Opposition Parties Seeking 50 Per Cent Verification Of VVPAT Slips

The Supreme Court on Tuesday (7 May) rejected the review petition filed by 21 opposition parties seeking 50 per cent verification of the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) slips in the Lok Sabha elections.

According to a Live Law report, the apex court bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi rejected the plea. “We are not inclined to review our order", said the CJI Gogoi while dismissing the petition.

Earlier, on 8 April, the SC, after hearing the original petition filed by 21 opposition parties, had directed the Election Commission to increase random matching of VVPAT slips with electronic voting machines (EVMs) to five polling booths from one per assembly segment in the ongoing general elections.

However, dissatisfied with the verdict, 21 opposition parties had filed a review petition seeking 50 per cent matching of VVPAT slips with the EVMs.

As per the report, the petitioners included N Chandrababu Naidu (TDP), Sharad Pawar (NCP), K C Venugopal (INC), Derek O Brien (TMC), Akhilesh Yadav (SP), Satish Chandra Mishra (BSP), M K Stalin (DMK) , Arvind Kejriwal (AAP), Farookh Abdullah (NC) and Manoj Kumar Jha (RJD) among others.