The Supreme Court has dismissed a plea seeking review of its April 26, 2024, verdict, which had rejected a batch of petitions, including one by the NGO Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), seeking 100% cross-verification of votes cast through Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) with the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) slips.
A bench of Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Dipankar Datta dismissed the review petition filed by petitioner Arun Kumar Agrawal, saying that no case for review of the April 26 judgment was made out.
“We have carefully perused the review petition, as well as the grounds in support thereof. In our opinion, no case for review of the judgment dated 26.04.2024 is made out. The review petition is, accordingly, dismissed,” the bench stated in its July 25 order.
The petition seeking the review of the April 26 judgment, filed by petitioner Arun Kumar Agarwal, claimed that mistakes and errors were apparent in the judgment.
The review petition said, “It is not correct to state that the result will be unreasonably delayed (by tallying EVM votes with VVPAT slips), or that the manpower required will be double of that already deployed… Existing CCTV surveillance of counting halls would ensure that manipulation and mischief do not occur in VVPAT slip counting.”
In his review petition, Arun Kumar Agarwal had stated that “Electronic Voting Machines do not allow voters to verify that their votes have been accurately recorded. Furthermore, given their very nature, Electronic Voting Machines are especially vulnerable to malicious changes by insiders such as designers, programmers, manufacturers, maintenance technicians, etc.”
By its April 26 judgment, the top court had rejected the plea by the NGO Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and others seeking 100% cross-verification of EVM votes with VVPAT slips. The court had directed the Election Commission that, after the completion of the symbol loading process in the VVPATs undertaken on or after May 1, 2024, the symbol loading units shall be sealed and secured in a container and the same shall be kept in the strong rooms along with the EVMs at least for 45 days after the declaration of results.
Finding no infirmity in the conduct of polling using EVMs, a bench of Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Dipankar Datta had asked the Election Commission of India to examine the suggestion for using counting machines to count the VVPAT paper slips and to consider whether a barcode could be included for each party along with the symbol.