The Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed a review petition seeking a reconsideration of its earlier judgement that rejected the demand for 100 per cent verification of Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) votes with their corresponding Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) slips. The bench, comprising Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta, ruled that there was no substantial ground to review the court's April 26 judgement, which had already dismissed the plea for full verification of EVM votes with VVPAT slips.
What the top court said?
In their brief order, the bench stated, "We have carefully perused the review petition and find no case for review of the judgement dated April 26, 2023. The review petition is accordingly dismissed." The review petition filed by Arun Kumar Agarwal contended that there are mistakes and errors apparent in the April 26 judgment. The review petition had stated, "It is not correct to state that the result will be unreasonably delayed (by tallying EVM votes with VVPAT slips) or the manpower required will be double of that already deployed... Existing CCTV surveillance of counting halls would ensure that manipulation and mischief do not occur in VVPAT slip counting."
Original judgement on VVPAT-EVM verification
The petitioner had sought a review of the April 26 judgement by which it declined the petitions which sought cross-verification by the voters of votes cast by them as "counted as recorded" in the EVMs with VVPAT. The original judgement had upheld the current practice, which involves the random verification of VVPAT slips from five polling stations in each Assembly constituency. The petitioners had argued that 100 per cent verification was necessary to ensure the integrity and transparency of the electoral process. However, the Supreme Court had found the existing procedure to be sufficient and in compliance with the requirements of free and fair elections.
In its judgement on April 26, the apex court also rejected petitioners' prayer to revert back to the paper ballot voting system. The verdict of the top court came on petitions that sought cross-verification by the voters of votes cast by them as "counted as recorded" in the EVMs with VVPAT.
(With inputs from ANI)
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