Supreme Court asks Election Commission to look into allegation of EVM malfunctioning in Kerala

The Supreme Court on Thursday directed the Election Commission of India (ECI) to examine allegations of Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) malfunctioning and erroneously registering votes in favour of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) during mock polling in Kerala's Kasaragod.

A bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta directed the ECI counsel to look into the issue after it was raised by advocate Prashant Bhushan.

"There was a mock poll in Kasargode, Kerala. 4 EVMs and VVPATs were recording one extra vote for BJP. Manorama carried this report," Bhushan said.

"Mr. Maninder Singh (ECI Counsel), please crosscheck it," the Court said.

The Court was hearing a batch of petitions seeking to directions to tally every vote cast through EVMs with Voter-Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) slips during elections.

Presently, VVPAT verification is done only for votes recorded in five randomly selected EVMs in each assembly segment.

One of the petitioners, lawyer and activist Arun Kumar Agrawal, has prayed that each and every EVM vote should be tallied against VVPAT slips.

The petitioner has also sought a direction that voters should be allowed to physically drop the slips generated by the VVPAT in a ballot box to ensure that the voter’s ballot has been ‘counted as recorded’.

Read live updates from the hearing here.