The most significant of the latest cases is a batch of cases seeking a thorough count of Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) slips in elections.

Among other prayers, the Court has been urged to order that every vote cast through EVMs be tallied with VVPAT slips, as opposed to tallying only a fraction of EVM votes (that are randomly selected) with VVPAT slips.

One of the petitions was filed by the Association for Democratic Reforms in 2023 but at the time, a bench of the top court asked if we are not being "over-suspicious" and refused to hear it on an urgent basis.

Only a few weeks ago, after the election phases were notified, did the Supreme Court finally start hearing the petitions at length and today, just one day before voting begins in phase 1, the Court reserved its verdict on the matter.

A bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta during the hearing today remarked that everything cannot be suspected and the petitioners don't have to be critical about each and every aspect of EVM.

The bench did direct the ECI to examine allegations of EVMS malfunctioning and erroneously registering votes in favour of the BJP during mock polling in Kerala's Kasaragod.

However, it also reiterated its previous sentiments of petitioners being "over-suspicious" and that allowing the prayers of the petitioners would be "a humungous task".

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