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Supreme Court of India on Friday while rejecting all the pleas filed before it seeking 100% verification of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) with Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) slips questioned the intentions of the petitioners before it.

Justice Dipankar Datta expressed having serious doubts as regards the bona fides of the petitioning association, i.e., Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) on account of it seeking reversion to the old order of ballot papers.

"Irrespective of the fact that in the past efforts of the petitioning association in bringing about electoral reforms have borne fruit, the suggestion put forth appeared inexplicable. Question of reverting to the “paper ballot system”, on facts and in the circumstances, does not and cannot arise. It is only improvements in the EVMs or even a better system that people would look forward to in the ensuing years...", the bench said.

Court further has said that ECI's assertion that exercise of tallying 5% VVPAT slips with votes cast by the electors has not, till date, resulted in any mismatch was not proved to be incorrect by the petitioners by referring to any credible material or data.

"...the petitioners’ apprehensions are misplaced. Reverting to the paper ballot system, rejecting inevitable march of technological advancement, and burdening the ECI with the onerous task of 100% VVPAT slips tallying would be a folly when the challenges faced in conducting the elections are of such gargantuan scale.", the court has held.

Earlier, while hearing the petitions court had also opined that it could not control elections or act as a controlling authority for the Election Commission, another constitutional body.

Last year, Court had sought a reply from the poll panel on the petition filed by 'Association for Democratic Reforms' seeking to cross verify the count in EVMs with votes that have been verifiably ‘recorded as cast’ by the voters themselves, through the VVPATs.

The plea also sought a direction to declare as unconstitutional the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961, and the practice and procedure of ECI to the extent that they violate the fundamental right of the voters to verify through VVPATs that their vote has been ‘recorded as cast’ and ‘counted as recorded'.

The plea claimed that during the 2019 General Elections, there were EC acknowledged instances, where there was variance in the results captured in the EVMs and that of the VVPATs. 

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