The Supreme court on Monday sought responses from the commission and the central government on the plea seeking a complete count of VVPAT slips in polls as opposed to the current practice of verification of only five randomly selected EVMs through VVPAT paper slips.
In a post on X, Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh on Monday said, "The Supreme Court has issued a notice today to the Election Commission on the issue of VVPATs. It bears constant repetition that the Election Commission has refused to meet a delegation of INDIA (bloc) party leaders who have been demanding 100 per cent VVPATs to increase public confidence in EVMs and to ensure the integrity of the electoral process."
"The notice is an important first step, but for it to be meaningful, the matter should be decided before the elections commence," Ramesh said.
The Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) is an independent vote verification system which permits an elector to see whether his vote was cast correctly.
The VVPAT generates a paper slip which can be viewed by the voter and the paper slip is kept in a sealed cover and can be opened in case of a dispute.
The Supreme Court's attention to this matter follows an earlier directive from April 8, 2019, wherein the court mandated the Election Commission to increase the number of EVMs undergoing VVPAT physical verification from one to five per assembly segment in a parliamentary constituency.
The plea, represented by senior lawyer Gopal Sankaranarayanan and advocate Neha Rathi on behalf of activist Arun Kumar Agrawal, challenges the Election Commission's guideline of sequential VVPAT verification.
Instead, it proposes simultaneous verification, suggesting that with more officers deployed for counting in each assembly constituency, complete VVPAT verification could be completed in five to six hours.
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