Supreme Court rejects plea for 100% manual VVPAT slip counting

The Supreme Court of India has dismissed a petition demanding full manual counting of Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) slips alongside the electronic tally recorded by Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs).

A bench led by Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna, along with Justices Sanjay Kumar and K.V. Viswanathan, upheld the earlier decision of the Delhi High Court, which had already declined to entertain the public interest litigation (PIL) filed by the petitioner.

During the hearing, the bench firmly stated that it would not revisit issues that had already been thoroughly addressed in previous rulings. With that, the court refused to grant the special leave petition and closed the matter.

The debate over VVPAT cross-verification has surfaced repeatedly in recent years. In April 2024, the Supreme Court had similarly dismissed a group of petitions that sought mandatory 100% verification of EVM votes against VVPAT slips. At that time, a bench including then-Justice (now CJI) Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Dipankar Datta clarified that while voters have a constitutional right to ensure their vote is properly recorded, this does not extend to a right demanding total manual counting or physical handling of the VVPAT slips.

The latest petition, originally filed in the Delhi High Court, proposed changes to the VVPAT system itself. It suggested that the printed slip should be openly visible to the voter and then submitted to a presiding officer before the voter exits the polling booth—effectively allowing more direct verification. However, the Delhi High Court dismissed the case in August 2023, stating that the issue had already been settled by the Supreme Court.