SC to Hear on April 16 Pleas for Cross Verification of Votes Cast with VVPAT Slips

The Supreme Court mentioned on Tuesday it should hear on April 16 a batch of pleas in search of cross-verification of the votes solid with Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT).

The VVPAT is an impartial vote verification system which permits an elector to see whether or not his vote was solid appropriately. It generates a paper slip which might be considered by the voter. It is saved in a sealed cowl and might be opened in case of a dispute.

A bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta, which couldn’t take up the petitions associated to Electronic Voting Machines (EVM), mentioned it should contemplate all pleas within the matter for listening to on subsequent Tuesday.

The seven-phase Lok Sabha polls will start on April 19. The prime courtroom had mentioned on April 3 it will hear subsequent week the plea filed by NGO Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) alongside with different issues after advocate Prashant Bhushan sought an pressing listening to.

On April 1, the highest courtroom sought responses from the Election Commission and the Centre on a plea by activist Arun Kumar Agrawal in search of an entire depend of VVPAT slips in polls as opposed to the present observe of tallying slips from solely 5 randomly chosen EVMs from every meeting phase comprising a parliamentary constituency. Both the pleas will now be taken up for listening to on April 16.

The ADR has sought the courtroom’s route to the ballot panel and the Centre to make sure the voters can confirm by means of VVPATs that their vote has been “counted as recorded”.

The petition has sought to match the depend in EVMs with votes which were verifiably “recorded as cast” and to be sure that the voter can confirm by means of the VVPAT slip that his vote, as recorded on the paper slip, has been “counted as recorded”.

The plea has mentioned the requirement of the voters verifying that their votes have been “recorded as cast” is considerably met when the VVPAT slip is displayed for about seven seconds after urgent the button on the EVM by means of a clear window.

“However, there is a complete vacuum in law as the ECI has provided no procedure for the voter to verify that her vote has been counted as recorded’ which is an indispensable part of voter verifiability.

The failure of the ECI to provide for the same is in the teeth of purport and object of the directions issued by this Court in Subramanian Swamy versus Election Commission of India (2013 verdict),” the plea mentioned.

(This story has not been edited by News18 workers and is revealed from a syndicated information company feed – PTI)