Supreme Court Seeks Responses From EC, Centre On Plea For Complete Count Of VVPAT Slips

In a significant development ahead of the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, the Supreme Court on Monday sought responses from the Election Commission and the Centre on a plea seeking a complete count of VVPAT slips, as reported by news agency PTI. The Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) is an independent vote verification system that permits an elector to see whether his vote was cast correctly.

As per the current practice, verification of only five randomly selected EVMs through VVPAT paper slips is done. The VVPAT generates a paper slip that can be viewed by the voter, and the paper slip is kept in a sealed cover and can be opened in case of a dispute.

In 2019, the apex court issued an order to the top poll body to increase the number of EVMs that undergo VVPAT physical verification from one to five per assembly segment in a parliamentary constituency. The plea seeking a complete count of VVPAT slips in the election as opposed to the verification of only five randomly selected EVMs through VVPAT paper slips was submitted by lawyers representing activist Arun Kumar Agrawal. 

A bench comprising justices B R Gavai and Sandeep Mehta took note of the plea, and it issued notices to the Election Commission (EC) and the central government on the plea, which may be listed for hearing on May 17, as reported by PTI. Senior lawyer Gopal Sankaranarayanan and advocate Neha Rathi appeared for Agrawal.

The plea assailed the guidelines of the poll body according to which VVPAT verification shall be done sequentially, one after the other.

As per the plea, if simultaneous verification is done and more officers are deployed for counting in each assembly constituency, then complete VVPAT verification can be done in a matter of five-six hours, as reported by PTI. The government has spent nearly Rs 5,000 crore on the purchase of nearly 24 lakh VVPATs, but presently, VVPAT slips of only approximately 20,000 VVPATs are verified, the plea stated.

Given that many questions are being raised by experts with regard to VVPATs and EVMs and the fact that a large number of discrepancies between the EVM and VVPAT vote count have been reported in the past, it is imperative that all VVPAT slips are counted and a voter is given an opportunity to properly verify that his vote as cast in the ballot is also counted by allowing him to physically drop his/her VVPAT slip in the ballot box, the plea said, as reported by PTI.

The top court issued the notice and tagged it with pending matters on the issue.