IANS | 26 Apr, 2024
The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed a batch of petitions seeking
mandatory cross-verification of the votes cast in Electronic Voting
Machines (EVMs) with Voter-Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) slips.
However,
a bench headed by Justice Sanjiv Khanna asked the Election Commission
of India to examine the suggestion if the VVPAT slips may, in addition
to the party symbol, have unique barcodes on them, which in turn could
be counted by an electronic machine.
In his verdict, Justice
Khanna passed two directions in the matter. First, all Symbol Loading
Units (SLUs) will be sealed on or after May 1 on completion of the
symbol loading process and will be kept in the strong room at least for
45 days post declaration of results.
“The candidates or
representatives shall sign the seal. The containers containing SLUs
shall be kept in strong rooms, along with EVMs, at least for a period of
45 days post declaration of results,” the apex court said.
Second,
the burnt memory semicontroller may be examined and verified by a team
of engineers from EVM manufacturers post announcement of results on a
written request made by candidates securing second and third highest
votes.
“All candidates or their representatives shall have the
option to remain present at the time of verification. Such a request
should be made within a period of 7 days from the date of the
declaration of results. After the verification process is conducted, the
actual cost or expenses for the said verification will be notified by
the ECI and the candidates making the said request will make payment of
said expenses. Expenses will be refunded in case EVM is found to be
tampered,” ordered the Supreme Court.
It said that the district
election officer in consultation with the team of engineers will certify
the authenticity and intactness of the burnt memory of the
microcontroller.
Justice Dipankar Datta, authored a separate opinion, concurring with the directions issued by Justice Khanna.
On
Wednesday, the 2-judge Bench called for the presence of an Election
Commission of India (ECI) official to clarify certain technical aspects
pertaining to the functioning of the EVMs.
Last week, the top
court reserved its verdict in the matter, observing that official acts
are normally presumed to be done validly under the Indian Evidence Act
and everything done by the Election Commission cannot be suspected.
Solicitor
General Tushar Mehta, the second highest law officer of the Centre, had
slammed the petitioners for periodically filing PILs on the eve of
elections saying that the democratic choice of a voter is being turned
into a joke.
He added that the issue has already been settled by
the apex court with the dismissal of the pleas seeking similar relief in
the past.
In April 2019, the Supreme Court ordered the ECI to
increase the VVPAT slips from one Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) per
Assembly constituency to five. It had issued guidelines for mandatory
verification of VVPAT slips, out of five randomly selected polling
stations, after completing the final round of counting votes recorded in
EVMs.
A VVPAT is considered an independent verification system
for voting machines, allowing voters to verify whether they have
correctly cast their votes.