The Supreme Court of India today agreed to hear a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) seeking verification of Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) slips of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) at the start of the counting of votes instead of the regular practice of verifying it at the end. The plea comes two days ahead of the counting of votes for the assembly elections in five states – Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Manipur, Punjab and Goa.
The matter was posted before Chief Justice of India NV Ramana by senior advocate Meenakshi Arora. CJI Ramana then posted it for hearing tomorrow. Arora contended that verification of VVPAT at the end of the counting renders the exercise moot.
“Verification of VVPAT is after counting is over and by that time all election agents have left, so there is no transparency…If verification is after counting is over then there is no use. Verification should be first when there are agents, parties, candidates etc,” she added.
However, CJI Ramana noted that guidelines related to this are already in existence since 2019. The CJI was referring to the April 8 Supreme Court order in which it had directed the ECI to verify the VVPAT paper trail from five EVMs per assembly segment, instead of one. To this, Arora contended that VVPAT verification at present is done only with respect to one booth per polling station.
However, the CJI asked why the petitioner approached the court at the eleventh hour as the counting of votes will be taken up day after tomorrow. The apex court wondered how it could issue directions to all states even if the hearing takes place tomorrow. The CJI then posted the matter for hearing tomorrow while asking the ECI to be present.