Supreme Court Rejects Pleas Seeking 100 Per Cent EVM-VVPAT Verification, Return To Paper Ballot Voting

The Supreme Court on Friday (26 April) rejected the petition seeking 100 per cent cross-verification of Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) slips with votes cast through Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) during elections.

A Bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta also rejected the prayer for going back to paper ballot instead of EVMs.

"We have rejected the prayer for paper ballot voting, complete EVM-VVPAT verification and physical deposit of VVPAT slips," the Court said while pronouncing the order, Bar and Bench reported.

"While balanced perspective is important but blindly doubting a system can breed skepticism and thus meaningful criticism is needed. Be it judiciary, legislature etc. democracy is all about maintaining harmony and trust among all the pillars. By nurturing a culture of trust and collaboration, we can strengthen the voice of our democracy," the Court said.

However, the apex court issued the following directions to be followed by the Election Commission of India (ECI):

1. That on completion of the symbol loading process in the VVPAT undertaken on or after 01.05.2024, the Symbol Loading Unit(SLU) should be sealed and secured in containers.

2. The burnt memory semicontroller in 5 per cent of the EVMs that is the Control Unit, Ballot Unit and the VVPAT per assembly constituency per parliamentary constituency shall be checked and verified by a team of engineers from the manufacturers of the EVM post the announcement of results on a written request by candidates 2 and 3.

Earlier, the apex court had reserved judgment on the petitions on 18 April after two days of hearing. The court listed the petitions again on 24 April to seek certain technical clarifications from the ECI.

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