The Supreme Court on Monday directed the Election Commission of India (ECI) to respond to a plea that Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) count and Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) paper count should be cross-verified in at least 30% randomly chosen polling stations in each Assembly segment or constituency, especially in the light of Lok Sabha elections due in May 2019.
A Bench led by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi ordered the Commission to respond to the petition jointly filed by former IAS officer M.G. Devasahayam, ex foreign services officer K.P. Fabian and retired banker Thomas Franco Rajendra Dev, represented by advocate Prasanna S.
The petition said the Commission has chosen to conduct the cross-verification exercise in an “inexplicably minuscule” manner in the recent State Assembly elections.
“The fraction of polling stations chosen for such random cross-verification by the Election Commission has been inexplicably minuscule (less than 1% of polling stations in each constituency) and the Petitioners contend that a decision to limit the cross-verification to such a minuscule share is manifestly arbitrary, irrational, unreasonable and in violation of Article 14 of the Constitution,” the petition said.
It said an effective violation of democracy principles and the principle of elections not only need to be free and fair, but also seen to be free and fair.
The petition sought that “in order to detect and deter any such mischief or bias in the EVM process, at least 30% of all polling stations in a constituency must be chosen randomly for EVM counts to be cross-verified with VVPAT counts.”
The petitioners submitted that the Supreme Court in its judgment Dr. Subramanian Swamy versus ECI, reported in 2013, had held it was imperative that elections held through EVMs ought to implement a mechanism of Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trails so that the voter can satisfy himself/herself that the vote was accurately recorded.
The court’s judgment and need for voter confidence and transparency in the election process led to the mechanism for random cross-verification of EVM counts with VVPAT counts. This was in order to detect any technological mischief or mal-programming of EVMs.