New Delhi, September 6, 2023 – In a recent development, the Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected an urgent plea seeking directions to mandate the tallying of Voter-Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) slips with votes cast via Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs). The case, titled “Association for Democratic Reforms v. Election Commission of India and others,” was brought before a Bench consisting of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and SVN Bhatti.
The Court, while refusing to expedite the matter, emphasized that the petitioner should not harbor excessive suspicion about the integrity of the electoral process. Instead, they listed the case for a hearing scheduled in November.
Justice Khanna articulated the Court’s stance, stating, “How many times will this issue be raised? Every six months. There is no urgency. We will hear it in due course. Every year, a fresh petition is filed about this. There are other urgent matters. If any elections are held in the interim, so be it. This is not a criminal case. Please.”
The Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) had filed the plea, contending that VVPAT slips should be cross-referenced with EVM votes to enable citizens to verify that their votes are accurately ‘counted as recorded’ and ‘recorded as cast.’
During the proceedings, Advocate Prashant Bhushan, representing ADR, highlighted that assembly elections for certain states are slated for November and urged the Court to expedite the case within two weeks. He further underscored errors in the counter submitted by the opposing party, stressing that the matter should not become inconsequential.
Despite these arguments, the Court declined to grant an urgent hearing and instead scheduled the case for consideration in November.
In July of this year, the Supreme Court had previously commented that some public interest litigations (PILs) concerning electoral processes in the country tend to cast excessive doubt on the sanctity of the election process.
In April 2019, the Supreme Court had increased the number of EVMs subject to VVPAT paper trail verification from 1 EVM to 5 EVMs per assembly segment or constituency. This decision had come in response to a petition by leaders of various political parties seeking the physical verification of VVPAT paper trails for at least 50 percent of polling stations.
In May 2019, the Court had dismissed a plea filed by technocrats advocating for VVPAT verification of all EVMs.
