Supreme Court to Issue Directions on Petitions for Mandatory EVM-VVPAT Verification

The Supreme Court is set to issue certain directions on Wednesday regarding a series of petitions that call for compulsory cross-checking of votes cast in Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) with Voter-Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) slips. The matter is listed for directions on April 24 before a bench comprising Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta, according to the causelist published on the Supreme Court's official website.

Last week, the bench reserved its judgment on a batch of public interest litigations (PILs) related to the issue. The bench observed that under the Indian Evidence Act, official acts are typically presumed to be valid, and actions taken by the Election Commission should not be viewed with suspicion.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, the second highest law officer of the Centre, criticized the petitioners for frequently filing PILs on the eve of elections, arguing that such actions trivialize the democratic choice of a voter. The Solicitor General further noted that the apex court has previously dismissed pleas seeking similar relief, effectively settling the issue.

In April 2019, the Supreme Court directed the Election Commission of India (ECI) to increase the number of VVPAT slips from one per EVM in each Assembly constituency to five. The court also issued guidelines for the mandatory verification of VVPAT slips from five randomly selected polling stations after the final round of vote counting recorded in EVMs.

VVPATs are considered an independent verification system for voting machines, enabling voters to confirm that their votes have been correctly cast.