'No going back to ballot papers'; Supreme Court rejects plea seeking complete verification of EVM votes with VVPAT slips

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday rejected all the petitions seeking 100 per cent verification of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) votes with their Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) slips. The court also rejected the demand to revert to paper ballots instead of EVMs. The apex court issued the verdict after considering the plea filed by those including the Association of Democratic Reforms.

"We have rejected all of them, after referring to the protocol in place, technical aspects and data which is on record," said the bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar in separate yet concurring judgements.

The Supreme Court had sought an explanation from the Election Commission of India (ECI) on the petitions. The court issued the verdict on the basis of the explanation provided by the ECI.

The apex court gave two directions saying, "One direction is after the completion of the symbol loading process, the Symbol Loading Unit (SLU) should be sealed in containers. The SLU should be stored at least for a period of 45 days."

The top court in its second direction said that the burnt memory in the microcontroller EVM shall be checked by a team of engineers after the declaration of results on a request by candidates and such a request for verification to be made within seven days after the declaration of results.

The expenses for the verification to be borne by the candidates making the request, said the bench, adding that in case the EVM is found to be tampered, the expenses will be refunded.

The bench also asked the ECI to examine the EVM for vote counting the paper slips and whether along with the symbol there can be a bar code for each party.

Justice Datta in his separate judgement said that blindly distrusting a system can lead to unwarranted skepticism."Instead, a critical yet constructive approach guided by evidence and reason should be followed... to ensure the system's credibility and effectiveness," Justice Datta said in his judgement.