New Delhi: The Supreme Court of India on Monday sought the response of Election Commission of India (ECI) on verifying all Voter-Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) slips during elections, against the current practice in VVPAT verification.
Currently, VVPAT verification is carried out on votes recorded on five randomly selected Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) per an assembly segment, according to the News Minute.
The court’s response comes after the petition sought tallying of each vote cast in the EVM against corresponding VVPAT slips.
Arun Kumar Agrawal, who is a lawyer and activist, in his petition argued that ECI’s guidelines of sequential VVPAT verification causes delays during counting, and sought simultaneous verification and deploying additional officers in each assembly constituency to complete VVPAT verification within five to six hours.
Alongside grouping the plea with other pending ones regarding EVMs and VVPAT, a bench comprising Justice BR Gavai and Justice Sandeep Mehta has issued the notice to the ECI seeking response.
Meanwhile, The ECI recently pointed out ‘practical difficulties in verifying all VVPATs’ in response to another petition.
The petition filed on Monday reportedly sought to allow voters to physically deposit VVPAT in ballot box for accurate ‘ representation of their ballots’.
The legal batting happening currently around VVPAT verification reminds of similar demands, made by Opposition ahead of 2019 Lok Sabha Elections, for increased VVPAT verification.