The Supreme Court dismissed all petitions seeking 100 per cent verification of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) votes with their Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) slips, as well as the prayers of petitioners to return to ballot paper voting, on April 26.
A bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta announced the decision.
Justice Khanna said that the decision was taken after keeping protocols and technical aspects in mind. He added, “One suggestion which can be examined by the Election Commission of India would be whether there can be electronic machines for counting paper slips and whether there can be a bar code along with the symbols as regards which party.”
They mentioned that the Symbol Loading Unit (SLU) should be sealed and stored for at least for 45 days after the completion of the symbol loading process.
Secondly, the SC also informed of the availability of an option to get the microcontroller program of EVMs checked by a team of engineers after results have been announced. They added that the request has to be made by the candidate within seven days after results are out.
Meanwhile, Justice Datta lay emphasis on maintaining a balanced perspective, further adding that blindly distrusting any aspect of the system can invite doubts.
Over the years, many questions have been pointed at the originality of the VVPAT machine, with the Opposition putting specific stress on the need to cross-check VVPAT slips with the EVM votes.