SC rejects all petitions seeking 100% verification of VVPATs during elections

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday rejected all petitions seeking 100% cross-verification of votes cast using Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) with Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) slips.

The order was passed by a bench comprising Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta, who emphasized that democracy thrives on harmony and trust among its various institutions. The Supreme Court has granted an option to candidates to get the microcontroller program of EVMs to be checked by a team of engineers after the declaration of results, such a request is to be made by the candidate within seven days after the declaration of results.

The Supreme Court has directed the Election Commission to seal symbol loading units for 45 days after symbols are loaded into EVMs.

"Democracy is about striving to build harmony and blindly distrusting the poll process can lead to unwarranted suspicion," the top court said.

The apex court also rejected the prayers of petitioners to return to ballot paper voting.

The petitioners had backed their demand by raising suspicion over the probability of hacking and manipulation of machines and sought that 100% matching of EVM counts and VVPATs will help allay all doubts.

During the previous hearing on April 18, the bench had said that it would intervene if there was any possibility to improve the present system of voting and counting, but made it clear that it cannot pass orders pertaining to EVMs only on the basis of suspicion of their hacking and manipulation.