Supreme Court Dismisses Plea Seeking 100% Manual Counting Of VVPAT Slips

The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a plea seeking direction to the Election Commission of India (ECI) that there should be 100 per cent manual counting of the VVPAT slips in addition to electronic counting by the control unit of Electronic Voting Machines (EVM).

A bench of CJI Sanjiv Khanna and Justices Sanjay Kumar and K.V Viswanathan declined to interfere with the decision of the Delhi High Court which had earlier dismissed the public interest litigation (PIL) filed by the appellant.

During the course of the hearing, the CJI Khanna-led Bench remarked that it would not be examining the same issues over and over again.

Ultimately, the top court dismissed the special leave petition filed by the appellant-PIL litigant.

In April 2024, the Supreme Court had dismissed a clutch of petitions seeking mandatory cross-verification of the votes cast in EVMs with VVPAT slips.

A bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna (now CJI) and Dipankar Datta said that while it acknowledged the fundamental right of voters to ensure their vote is accurately recorded and counted, the same cannot be equated with the right to 100 per cent counting of VVPAT slips, or a right to physical access to the VVPAT slips, which the voter should be permitted to put in the drop box.

The appellant had moved a PIL before the Delhi High Court seeking directions to the ECI to use appropriate prototype of VVPAT system in the future, in which the printer is kept open and the printed ballot, which gets cut and falls out of the printer, is subject to verification by the voter, before providing the same to a presiding officer before leaving the polling station.

Declining to entertain the matter, the Delhi HC, in its judgment passed on August 12, last year, had said that the issue raised in the PIL was no longer res integra in view of the judgment delivered by the top court.

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