Supreme court issues notice in plea filed by 21 opposition leaders for VVPAT verification

In a petition filed by the leaders of around 21 opposition parties seeking Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) verification of at least 50 per cent of EVMs, the Supreme Court has issued notice to the Election Commission..The Bench of Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi and Justices Deepak Gupta and Sanjiv Khanna has directed the Election Commission of India to depute a senior official to assist the Court in the matter while setting the date for hearing on March 25..Opposition leaders like N Chandrababu Naidu, Sharad Pawar, Akhilesh Yadav, Sharad Yadav, Arvind Kejriwal, Farooq Abdullah are also parties in the case..The petitioners in the case have moved the Supreme Court in the run-up to the 2019 general elections, seeking a direction to the Election Commission to crosscheck the votes cast in the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) with VVPAT. At least fifty percent of such EVMs should be cross-checked, the petitioners have prayed..The petition also calls for the quashing of an Election Commission guideline stating that VVPAT will only be used for randomly selected polling stations for each assembly segment in case of Lok Sabha elections. This guideline has been assailed as one that “defeats the entire purpose of introducing VVPAT and makes the same merely ornamental with no actual substance”..It also notes that in Dr. Subramanian Swamy v. Election Commission of India, the Supreme Court held that paper trail is an “indispensable requirement” of free and fair elections..The petition goes on to note that during the last Lok Sabha elections, there were over 9 lakh polling stations across the country. In this light,.“the total number of Assembly Segments in India comes down to 4120 (Four Thousand One Hundred Twenty). Thus computed (919725 divided by 4120), the average number of polling stations per Assembly Segment is about 223 (Two Hundred Twenty Three). Out of these, VVPAT from only 01 (one) random polling station is to be checked. This translates to an actual check on less than 0.44 % of EVMs in the country.”.This, it is contended, cannot remove doubts as to whether EVMs have been hacked or not. Therefore, it is submitted,.“…a 50% randomised verification in each assembly constituency/assembly segment is a reasonable sample size to both (a) allay the fears of the general public with regard to EVM tampering and; (b) be a statistically significant sample size to ensure that EVMs are functioning properly.”.The petition was filed through Advocate Arjun Singh Bhati and settled by Senior Advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi..Read the petition and order below..Bar & Bench is available on WhatsApp. For real-time updates on stories, Click here to subscribe to our WhatsApp.