Supreme Court Rejects Review Petition on EVM and VVPAT Verification
The Supreme Court of India has dismissed a petition seeking a review of its earlier judgement that rejected the plea for 100% verification of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) votes with their Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) slips.
Details of the Judgement
A bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta dismissed the review petition, stating that no case for review of the April 26 judgement was made out. The bench said, “We have carefully perused the review petition, as also the grounds in support thereof. In our opinion, no case for review of the judgement dated April 26, 2024 is made out. The review petition is, accordingly, dismissed.”
Arguments in the Review Petition
The review petition was filed by Arun Kumar Agarwal, who contended that there were mistakes and errors in the April 26 judgement. The petition argued that tallying EVM votes with VVPAT slips would not unreasonably delay results or require double the manpower. It also stated that existing CCTV surveillance would prevent manipulation during VVPAT slip counting.
The petitioner argued that electronic voting machines do not allow voters to verify that their votes have been accurately recorded and are vulnerable to malicious changes by insiders.
Previous Judgement
In its April 26 judgement, the Supreme Court also rejected the petitioners’ request to revert to the paper ballot voting system. The verdict came on petitions filed by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and Arun Kumar Aggarwal, among others, seeking more extensive verification of EVM data against VVPAT records.
Doubts Revealed
Supreme Court -: The Supreme Court is the highest court in India. It makes important decisions about laws and justice.
Review Petition -: A review petition is a request to re-examine a decision made by the court. It’s like asking the court to take another look at its ruling.
EVM -: EVM stands for Electronic Voting Machine. It’s a device used to record votes in elections.
VVPAT -: VVPAT stands for Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail. It’s a system that prints a paper slip to show the voter that their vote was recorded correctly.
Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta -: Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta are judges in the Supreme Court of India. They make decisions on important legal cases.
Arun Kumar Agarwal -: Arun Kumar Agarwal is the person who filed the review petition. He wanted the court to check all EVM votes with VVPAT slips.
Paper ballot voting -: Paper ballot voting is the traditional way of voting using paper and pen. Voters mark their choice on a paper ballot and drop it in a box.
