The Supreme Court recently clarified that the matter related to Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) data cross-checking against voter-verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) records will be heard on April 16.
The pleas were listed today before a bench of Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Dipankar Datta. As the bench was hearing another matter, it clarified that the EVM-VVPAT petitions will be heard next week. The bench led by Justice Sanjiv Khanna said that in the EVM issue, they have already mentioned that it will come up higher in the next Tuesday list.
Almost a week ago, the matter, which is being pursued by NGO-Association for Democratic Reforms, was mentioned before a Justice Khanna-led Bench by Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal. On said occasion, the judge had stated a likelihood of it being taken up next to next week, considering the roster and the manner in which cases were being listed.
Earlier, the Supreme Court had issued notice to the Election Commission of India (ECI) on a plea seeking a thorough count of Voter-Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) slips for all voting across the country.
At present, VVPAT verification is done only with respect to votes recorded in 5 randomly selected Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) in each assembly segment. The petitioner urged that each and every EVM vote should be tallied against VVPAT slips.
The plea further sought a direction that voters should be allowed to physically drop the slips generated by the VVPAT in a ballot box to ascertain that the voter’s ballot has been counted as recorded. A bench of Justice BR Gavai and Justice Sandeep Mehta issued notice to the Election Commission and tagged the plea along with other pending matters concerning EVM and VVPAT.
The plea contended that voters should be afforded the opportunity to thoroughly verify that their votes on the EVM are accurately accounted for, by allowing them to physically deposit their VVPAT slips in a ballot box.