The Supreme Court has sent a notice to the government and the Election Commission regarding VVPAT i.e. Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail.
In fact, a petition was filed in the Supreme Court, demanding counting of all VVPAT paper slips.
The court has sought reply in this regard. The bench of Justice BR Gavai and Justice Sandeep Mehta was hearing this case.
The petition states that instead of selecting 5 EVMs (Electronic Voting Machines) at random i.e. without any consideration, all VVPATs should be counted.
A petition was filed in the Supreme Court on behalf of lawyer and activist Arun Kumar Aggarwal. Apart from this, a similar petition was also filed by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR).
The petition has also challenged the guidelines of the Election Commission, which call for VVPAT verification one after the other.
The petition states that if verification is done simultaneously and more officers are deployed in the counting, then VVPAT verification can be completed in just 5 to 6 hours.
The petitioners say that the government has spent approximately Rs 5 thousand crores to purchase approximately 24 lakh VVPATs.
Whereas, in the current situation, only the slips of an estimated 20 thousand VVPATs are being verified.
It has been said in the petition that many experts have raised many questions in this matter and a large number of discrepancies in the votes of EVM and VVPAT have been reported in the past.
In the petition, a demand has been made from the Supreme Court that the EVM vote should be matched with the VVPAT slip. The Commission’s August 2023 guidelines for getting the VVPAT slips verified one by one should be cancelled.
The Commission should be directed to allow the voters to put their VVPAT slip in a separate ballot box after voting and the Commission should keep the glass of the VVPAT machine transparent and while voting, its light should remain lit for such a long time that the voter can cast his vote. One can easily view the paper recording and tear that slip and put it in a separate box.