VVPAT slips counting: Supreme Court issues notice to Election Commission seeking reply on opposition’s plea 

The Supreme Court of India.

New Delhi: The Supreme Court, on Friday, issued a notice to the Election Commission of India to find an answer on the plea filed by several opposition leaders seeking the counting of voter-verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) slips of 50 per cent of electronic voting machines (EVMs) in each constituency before the Lok Sabha election results are declared.

The bench comprising Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Deepak Gupta and Justice Sanjiv Khanna issued the notice while hearing the plea filed by the opposition. The next hearing on the plea would be on March 25.

The bench has asked the poll panel to appoint an officer to assist the court on the same.

Several opposition leaders, including Andhra Pradesh chief minister Chandrababu Naidu, Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and others, had filed the plea in the apex court, seeking the verification of 50 per cent of votes by paper trail before announcing the results of the upcoming Lok Sabha polls. Naidu, who is also the lead petitioner, earlier in February, stated that the opposition parties will be moving the apex court against the use of EVMs.

The Aam Aadmi Party, All India Trinamool Congress, Bahujan Samaj Party, Communist Party of India (Marxist), Communist Party of India, Congress, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, Loktantrik Janata Dal, Nationalist Congress Party, Rashtriya Lok Dal, and the Samajwadi Party are some of the parties who filed the application.

The opposition have been seen continuously quizzing about the authenticity of the EVMs and have demanded to get the ballot system back for this year’s Lok Sabha election. The EC had recently announced the election dates which begins at April 11 and ends with the declaration of results on May 23.

Related