VVPAT: Even during the last hearing, the bench had asked lawyer Maninder Singh, appearing for the Election Commission, to provide all the information related to the EVM to the court, including all the information related to the working of the EVM and its storage. The court had also asked the Election Commission’s lawyer what is the provision for punishment for those guilty of tampering with EVMs?
The case related to VVPAT was heard in the Supreme Court on Thursday. During this, the court told the Election Commission that there should be purity in the electoral 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. There should be purity in it. No one should fear that whatever possibilities exist are not being done.
Earlier on Tuesday, the Supreme Court had condemned those criticizing the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM). The court had said that conducting elections in the country is a big challenge, in such a situation we should not take the system backwards. In its remarks, the Supreme Court also mentioned the time when elections were conducted using ballot papers and ballot boxes were looted.
Supreme Court had said this
The Supreme Court had made this comment while hearing the petition filed by NGO ADR. In fact, the petition demanded that 100% cross verification of the votes cast in EVMs should be done with the VVPAT machine, so that the voter can know whether he has cast the correct vote.
The petition said that many European countries have also returned to ballot paper voting using EVMs. On this, 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 that you are talking about Germany, but what is the population there. My home state Bengal also has more population than Germany. We must have faith in the electoral process and not drag it backwards.
The bench said that there are about 98 percent registered voters in India. There may be some irregularities in the counting of votes, which can be corrected.
Justice Khanna said that we have also seen the time when there were no EVMs. There is no need to tell us what happened at that time. He said that human interference in any process causes problems and there is a possibility of bias, but machines work properly without any human interference.
Questions were asked to the Election Commission
The bench 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 working of EVMs and their storage. The court also asked the Election Commission’s lawyer what is the provision for punishment for those guilty of tampering with EVMs?
What is the claim in the petitions?
Petitioner’s lawyer Prashant Bhushan alleged that the directors of two government companies Bharat Electronics Limited and Electronics Corporation of India are linked to the BJP. Counsel for another petitioner claimed that after the 2019 general elections, a parliamentary committee had found irregularities in the EVMs, but the Election Commission has not yet given any reply regarding the same. During the two-hour long hearing, many petitioners presented their views before the court.
