Supreme Court rejects plea to tally all VVPAT slips with EVM votes; no going back to paper ballot

The Supreme Court on Friday rejected the petition seeking directions to tally all Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) slips with votes cast through Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) during elections..A Bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta also rejected the prayer for going back to paper ballot instead of EVMs. "We have rejected the prayer for paper ballot voting, complete EVM-VVPAT verification and physical deposit of VVPAT slips," the Court said pronouncing its order.The Court emphasised in its order about the need to nurture a culture of trust and collaboration to strengthen democracy."While balanced perspective is important but blindly doubting a system can breed skepticism and thus meaningful criticism is needed. Be it judiciary, legislature etc. democracy is all about maintaining harmony and trust among all the pillars. By nurturing a culture of trust and collaboration, we can strengthen the voice of our democracy," the Court said.However, the Court passed the following directions to the Election Commission of India (ECI) and other authorities to make EVMs foolproof:- On completion of symbol loading process the symbol loading units shall be sealed, the sealed container shall be kept in the strong rooms for 45 days; -All candidates shall have the option to be present at the time of verification. The district election officer shall certify the authenticity of the burnt memory;- Burnt memory in microcontroller unit to be checked by team of engineers..The verdict came in three petitions seeking directions to tally VVPAT slips with votes cast through EVMs during elections.One of the petitioners prayed that each and every EVM vote be tallied against VVPAT slips.Another plea filed by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) urged that VVPAT slips must be tallied with votes cast through EVMs so that citizens can confirm that their vote has been ‘counted as recorded’ and ‘recorded as cast.'The Supreme Court had on April 18 reserved its judgment in the matter. During the course of the hearings, it had asked whether it can issue directions regarding EVMs based on mere suspicions of hacking and manipulation..Are we not sometimes over-suspicious? Supreme Court on PIL to tally EVM votes with VVPAT slips.Tallying of VVPAT slips with EVMs has always been a subject of contention.Before the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, leaders of around 21 opposition political parties had moved the apex court seeking VVPAT verification of at least 50 percent of all EVMs.Back then, ECI used to tally only one random EVM per assembly segment with VVPAT.On April 8, 2019, the apex court raised this number from 1 to 5 and disposed of the plea. In May 2019, the Court dismissed a plea filed by some technocrats seeking VVPAT verification of all EVMs..[Read judgment]