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Synopsis

The Supreme Court has on Thursday has said that everything about the EVMs cannot be suspected but the voters are required to be satisfied with the explanation given by the Election Commission, as it reserved order on a plea for raising VVPAT counts to 100 % from current system of five machines.

A bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta said what good Election Commission has done must to be appreciated and everything can't be explained to the petitioners.

"There seems to be some gap between what is available in public domain and what should be available in public domain with regard to EVMs," the bench said.

The Election Commission represented by senior advocate Maninder Singh submitted that EVM is a standalone machine which cannot be hacked or tampered with. It also rejected the suggestion for redesigning the VVPAT.

The counsel said there has only one instance of mismatch because data of mock votes were not removed. He said human participation has been minimised in the present system as human error cannot be ruled out in manual counting.

Singh said there have 49 times when the governments have changed due to use of EVMs.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta submitted this happens on the eve of every elections. “Such kind of attempts might impact voting system,” the senior law officer said.

"This happens periodically on the eve of elections. It has an impact on voter turnout, and harms democracy. They are making choice of voter into a joke. I have told everyone on my side that be ready for some planted article/news article," he added.

The bench, however, said the petitions were not filed earlier. The court also said it has now learnt that some comments would always be made on social media.

The petitioners were led by advocates Prashant Bhushan, Gopal Sankaranarayanan, Santosh Paul, Sanjay Hegde.

During the hearing, the bench sought to know from the Election Commission the whole process of voting and counting of votes through the EVMs.

"What we wanted either you or some officer should allay all apprehensions of those inside the court room or those outside. It is an electoral process, there has to be some sanctity. Let nobody have any apprehension that something which is not expected is being done," the bench said.

"You tell us the whole process how candidates representatives are involved and how tampering is prevented," the bench asked Nitesh Vyas, Deputy EC.

The court also asked him about the harm caused if VVPAT slip is handed over the electors.

The official said it could affect secrecy of votes and could allow chances of deliberate mischief.

On April 1, 2024, the Supreme Court had issued notice to the Election Commission of India (ECI) on the writ petition demanding mandatory cross-verification of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) with Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) slips.

The petition, filed by lawyer and activist Arun Kumar Agrawal, sought a direction to ensure that all VVPAT slips are counted alongside the votes cast electronically. The plea filed through advocate Neha Rathi sought a direction for a comprehensive count of VVPAT slips, challenging the current practice of verifying only five randomly selected EVMs through VVPAT paper slips.

The petition further challenged the EC's guideline which mandated that VVPAT verification shall be done sequentially, i.e. one after the other, causing undue delay. 

It contended that if simultaneous verification is done and more number of officers are deployed for counting in each assembly constituency, then complete VVPAT verification can be done in matter of five-six hours. 

The plea stated that while the government has spent nearly Rs 5000 Crores on purchase of nearly 24 lakh VVPATs, presently VVPAT slips of only approximately 20,000 are verified. 

Case Title: Association for Democratic Reforms Vs Election Commission of India & Ors