On April 8, the Supreme Court had ordered that the EVM-VVPAT verification ratio be increased from 1% to 5%.
New Delhi| In a big jolt to the opposition, the Supreme Court today rejected a plea filed by united opposition parties to increase the verification of EVM and VVPAT. The twenty-one opposition parties had moved to the apex court demanding that the EVM-VVPAT verification should increase from 5% to 50%.
However, the two-judge bench of CJI Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Deepak Gupta ruled against their petition. After several complaints of EVM malfunctioning, the opposition had raised concerns about EVMs credibility. Many had referred to the complaints of voters suggesting the vote is polled in favour of BJP no matter which party they vote for. A similar incident had come to light recently in Goa where a malfunctioning EVM showed 17 votes for BJP when in fact only 9 votes were cast.
On April 8, the Supreme Court had ordered that the EVM-VVPAT verification ratio be increased from 1% to 5%. However, the opposition parties claimed that it is ‘unsatisfactory’. Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu had sought the review of the apex court’s order, saying the “increase from 1 to 5 is not a reasonable number and does not lead to satisfaction desired by this court”.
The plea, filed by Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi on behalf of 21 Opposition leaders, said: “The petitioners submit that the aforesaid increase to a mere 2 per cent is not sufficient and will not make any substantial difference to the situation that existed prior to the passing of the impugned order.
“Therefore, even though the petitioners have succeeded on the merits of their contention, their success does not resolve their grievance or cause any meaningful change to the situation that they were originally aggrieved of.”
Addressing the media after the SC order, Abhishek Manu Singhvi said that the concerns of opposition parties regarding EVM were “grave and serious”. “There is no “meaningful” implementation of the order, which is a “mere” 2 per cent. “We want the verification increased to 33 per cent, or worse come to worst, 25 per cent,” Singhvi said.
He pointed out that the Election Commission does not have any guidelines for the EVM-VVPAT verification and if the Supreme Court does not issue any, its order would be impractical. Opposition leaders, however, reiterated that they will pressurise the Election Commission to bring in more firm guidelines regarding VVPAT verification.
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