NEW DELHI: Supreme Court on Monday issued notice to Election Commission on a PIL filed by activist Arun Kumar Agrawal seeking complete count of voter verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) paper slips in elections as opposed to the current practice of verification of only five randomly selected electronic voting machines (EVMs) in each assembly segment of a parliamentary constitutency.Citing that similar petitions are pending and under consideration of the apex court, a bench headed by Justice B R Gavai tagged Agrawal’s plea with them.
The petitioner said that if simultaneous verification is done and more officers are deployed for counting, the complete VVPAT verification can be done in matter of 5-6 hours.
The petition further argued that while govt has spent nearly Rs 5,000 crores on purchase of nearly 24 lakh VVPATs, presently slips of only about 20,000 VVPATs are verified. Given that questions are being raised by experts on VVPATs and EVMs and a large number of discrepancies have been reported, it is imperative that all VVPATs slips are counted and the voter is given an opportunity to verify that his vote as cast in the ballot is also counted by allowing him to physically drop his/her VVPAT slip on the ballot box, it argued. tnn
The petitioner said that if simultaneous verification is done and more officers are deployed for counting, the complete VVPAT verification can be done in matter of 5-6 hours.
The petition further argued that while govt has spent nearly Rs 5,000 crores on purchase of nearly 24 lakh VVPATs, presently slips of only about 20,000 VVPATs are verified. Given that questions are being raised by experts on VVPATs and EVMs and a large number of discrepancies have been reported, it is imperative that all VVPATs slips are counted and the voter is given an opportunity to verify that his vote as cast in the ballot is also counted by allowing him to physically drop his/her VVPAT slip on the ballot box, it argued. tnn