The case related to VVPAT was heard in the Supreme Court on Thursday. During it, the court told the election committee that there should be purity in the election process. The court asked the election commission to explain in detail the steps taken to ensure free and fair elections. A bench of Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Dipankar Dutta said that this is an election process. It should have purity. No one should fear that all available options are not being done.
Earlier on Tuesday, the Supreme Court condemned the critics of the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM). The court said that conducting elections in the country is a big challenge, in such a situation the system must not be taken backwards. In his words, the Supreme Court also mentioned the period when the elections were held using ballots and ballot boxes were looted.
The Supreme Court made this comment while hearing the petition filed by the NGO ADR. In fact, the petition demanded that 100% cross-verification of the EVM votes be done using the VVPAT machine, so that the voter can know if he voted correctly.
The petition states that many countries in Europe have also returned to voting in ballot boxes using EVMs. In this regard, the bench of Justice Sanjeev Khanna and Justice Dipankar Dutta said that conducting elections in the country is a big challenge and no European country can do it.
What did the bench say?
- The bench said you are talking about Germany, but what is the population there. Also my home country Bengal has more population than Germany. We must believe in the electoral process and not drag it back.
- The bench said that India has about 98% registered voters. There may be irregularities in the counting of votes, which can be corrected.
- Justice Khanna said we have also seen the period when there were no EVMs. No need to tell us what happened at that time. According to him, human intervention in any process causes problems and there is a possibility of bias, but the machines work properly without any human interference.
Questions were asked to the election committee
The judge asked lawyer Maninder Singh, appearing on behalf of the Election Commission, to provide all the information related to EVMs to the court, including all the information related to the working of EVMs and their storage. Also, the court asked the election commission’s lawyer what is the punishment provision for those guilty of tampering with EVMs?
What is the claim in the petitions?
The petitioner’s lawyer Prashant Bhushan argued that the directors of two state-owned companies Bharat Electronics Limited and Electronics Corporation of India are associated with the BJP. Another petitioner’s attorney claimed that after the 2019 general elections, a parliamentary committee found irregularities in the EVMs, but the election committee has not yet given any answer on the matter. During the two-hour hearing, many petitioners presented their positions to the court.
