SC rejects demands of 100% VVPAT verification and Election by Ballot Papers: The Supreme Court has given a very important decision on Friday amidst the general elections being held in the country. The country’s largest court has rejected all the petitions in which all the votes cast through Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) were demanded to be matched with the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail i.e. VVPAT. Along with this, the Supreme Court has also rejected all the petitions demanding to stop using EVMs in the country’s elections and go back to conducting elections through ballot paper. This important decision has been given by the bench of Justice Sanjeev Khanna and Justice Dipankar Dutta.
The bench of two judges gave its verdict
Delivering the verdict on behalf of a two-judge bench, Justice Khanna said that the court thoughtfully discussed all the protocol and technical aspects related to conducting elections using EVMs and VVPATs. After this, the court has rejected the demand for 100 percent verification of votes cast in EVMs through VVPAT slips. Along with this, the court also rejects the demand to re-implement the ballot paper system for conducting elections.
Demand of many opposition parties and organizations
Apart from many major opposition parties of the country, many socio-political activists and some organizations have also been expressing doubt for a long time that there is scope for irregularities due to the use of technology in the elections conducted through EVMs, hence all the votes recorded in the machines should be matched. It should be done with VVPAT slips or the old system of conducting elections through ballot paper should be re-implemented. But the Supreme Court has rejected all such arguments and rejected their petitions.
