SC Dismisses Plea Seeking 100% Manual VVPAT Count Alongside EVM Tally
New Delhi, Apr 7 (PTI): The Supreme Court on Monday refused to examine a plea seeking a direction to the Election Commission of India for a 100 per cent manual counting of voter verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) slips in addition to electronic counting by the control unit.
A bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justices Sanjay Kumar and K V Viswanathan was dealing with the plea of one Hans Raj Jain against the August 12, 2024 judgement of the Delhi High Court on the issue.
"We do not find any good ground to interfere with the impugned judgement (of the Delhi High Court). The special leave petition is dismissed,” the CJI said, dismissing his appeal.
The CJI said an apex court bench led by him had passed a judgement raising similar issues previously, and it couldn't be agitated again and again.
Rejecting the pleas seeking 100 per cent cross-verification of electronic voting machines (EVMs) data with VVPAT records, the top court then held EVMs were safe, simple, secure, and user-friendly.
The Delhi High Court on August 12, last year referred to apex court judgements and dismissed Jain’s plea. It subsequently rejected a plea seeking the review of its verdict.
Jain sought directions to the election commission to use “appropriate prototype of VVPAT system in future, in which the printer is kept open and the printed ballot, which gets cut and falls out of the printer, is subject to verification by the voter, before providing the same to a presiding officer before leaving the polling station".
There should be 100 per cent counting of the VVPAT slips in addition to electronic counting by the control unit, he added.
The poll panel had informed the high court that the issue was fully covered by the judgment of the Supreme Court in the Association for Democratic Reforms v. Election Commission of India.
Referring to the apex court's verdict, the high court said the issue raised in the plea was no longer res integra. "Accordingly, the present writ petition and application are dismissed,” it added.
(This report has been published as part of the auto-generated syndicate wire feed. Apart from the headline, no editing has been done in the copy by ABP Live.)
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