Supreme Court Reserves Judgment on EVM-VVPAT Verification Plea Amidst Lok Sabha Elections 2024

The Supreme Court of India (SC) on April 24th reserved judgment on a plea regarding the verification of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) and Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) as the second phase of Lok Sabha Elections 2024 approaches on April 26th.

During the hearing, the apex court emphasized its limited role in controlling elections, which fall under the purview of another constitutional authority. A bench comprising Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta, which had earlier reserved its verdict on multiple pleas seeking comprehensive cross-verification of votes cast through EVMs with VVPAT, expressed the need for clarification on certain aspects due to confusion arising from the Election Commission’s responses in its ‘frequently asked questions’ (FAQs) on EVMs.

Justice Datta pointed out to advocate Prashant Bhushan that no malicious program loading with symbols had been reported. “Out of the 5% VVPATs counted, any candidate can detect if there is any discrepancy,” queried Justice Datta.

“Until now, there have been no reports of such incidents (malicious program loading and symbols). We cannot control the election, Mr. Bhushan, as it falls under another constitutional authority,” Justice Datta remarked.

Justice Khanna reassured, “If there are areas for improvement, we can address them. The courts intervened twice: first, when we mandated VVPATs, and second, when we increased their verification from one to five.” The SC also noted that suggestions to enhance the voting process often recommended a return to paper ballots.

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The order was issued during the SC’s hearing of several petitions seeking thorough cross-verification of votes cast via EVMs. The NGO ‘Association for Democratic Reforms’ (ADR), one of the petitioners, sought to reverse the Election Commission’s 2017 decision to replace the transparent glass on VVPAT machines with opaque glass, which allows voters to view the slip only when illuminated for seven seconds. The plea also requested voters be allowed to view the VVPAT slips produced by EVMs after each vote.

VVPAT is an independent vote verification system enabling electors to verify whether their votes have been correctly recorded.

Earlier in the day, the SC bench comprising Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Dutta had inquired about the functions of the microcontroller in EVMs, the security measures for EVMs and VVPATs, and the maximum retention period for the machines.