Lawyer moves Supreme Court seeking directions to hold elections using ballot paper instead of EVMs

Advocate Mehmood Pracha has moved the Supreme Court seeking directions to conduct all elections in the country using ballot papers instead of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs)..Pracha, who is contesting the upcoming Lok Sabha polls from Rampur constituency in Uttar Pradesh as an independent candidate, has argued that the Representation of the People Act of 1951 and the Conduct of Election Rules of 1961 mandate that elections be held using ballot paper alone."Elections by the use of Ballot Papers and Ballot Boxes is the rule ... Hence, all elections have to be held by the use of Paper Ballots and resort to voting machines may be considered by the Election Commission only on a case to case basis under exceptional circumstances and that too for justifiable reasons, which have to be delineated in a specific order," Pracha's plea said. .The plea has been filed as an interlocutory application in a pending case before the Supreme Court. In that matter, the top court had sought the response of the Election Commission of India on a PIL seeking a thorough count of Voter-Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) slips in elections..Pracha in his application has underscored that paper ballots cannot be replaced by EVMs as per the RP Act. "A ridiculous and sometimes dangerous situation/ interpretation emerges if one were to read ‘EVM’ in place of ‘Ballot Paper’ and ‘Ballot Box’ ... the provisions for counterfoils are another mode of securing the sanctity of voting and of the electoral process, which is not possible and not applicable in the case of EVMs," the plea argued. .Mehmood Pracha enrolled with the Bar Council of Delhi and began practicing as an Advocate in 1988 after graduating from the the Campus Law Centre, Faculty of Law, University of Delhi.His plea before the top court was drawn by advocates RHA Sikander and Jatin Bhatt.