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The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused an urgent hearing to a petition seeking a direction to the Election Commission of India (ECI) for mandatory verification of Voter-verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) slips at more than five polling stations in every constituency ahead of the counting of votes in assembly elections to five states.
The petition of Rakesh Kumar, an activist from Uttar Pradesh, was mentioned before a bench headed by Chief Justice of India N V Ramana for urgent listing, as the counting of votes is due on Thursday.
Senior advocate Meenakshi Arora, appearing for the petitioner, told the court the petition was seeking implementation of a 2019 Supreme Court judgment in the N Chandrababu Naidu v Union of India case, in which the court had directed the poll watchdog to ensure mandatory verification of VVPAT slips at five randomly selected polling stations.
The court allowed the petitioner to serve a copy of the plea to the commission and posted the matter for Wednesday.
Senior advocate Maninder Singh, who appeared for the ECI, informed the court that the poll overseer was following the April 2019 judgment. He added that the petition was seeking to increase the polling booths to be checked to 25. The ECI maintained no change can be made now as counting teams have been dispatched to the five states of Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Goa, and Manipur, where elections were held.
In its 2019 judgment, the court said, “The number of EVMs (Electronic Voting Machines) that would now be subject to verification so far as VVPAT paper trail is concerned would be 5 per assembly constituency or assembly segment in a Parliamentary constituency…”
The bench on Tuesday, also comprising justices AS Bopanna and Hima Kohli, said: “We will not interfere if the EC is following the judgment (of 2019).”
The petitioner’s lawyer, Raj Kumar, said a new prayer was being prepared to increase the verification from five to 25 polling stations for better transparency. “Each polling station has more than one polling booth. They are conducting verification only in one booth,” Kumar said.
The bench said since it is a new prayer, it has to consider whether to issue notice and seek ECI’s response. “For this, we need not hear tomorrow. We can consider it some other day.” Earlier, the court observed whether any effective order could be passed at the last minute.
Kumar urged the court that verification of VVPATs should be done during the first and second rounds of polling and not towards the end. The bench said it is expected that polling agents of each political party should stay till the end of counting. “When counting takes place, there is a change in trends till the end. If an agent does not stay till the end, what can we do.”
The court asked the petitioner if he wanted the review of the 2019 judgment. To this, Kumar said he only wanted implementation of the judgment.
The bench observed: “Whatever judgment is there, they (ECI) are following it. We need not interfere.”
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