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

The Supreme Court on had dismissed the plea seeking direction to the Election Commission of India to conduct 100% manual counting of VVPAT slips apart from the electronic counting by the control unit of Electronic Voting Machines (EVM).

The judgment was made when bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justices Sanjay Kumar and K.V. Viswanathan was dealing with the plea of one Hans Raj Jain against the August 12, 2024 judgment of the Delhi High Court issue.

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“We do not find any good ground to interfere with the impugned judgement (of the Delhi High Court). The special leave petition is dismissed,” the CJI said, dismissing his appeal.

Jain in his plea had mentioned that he had previously made a representation to the ECI, as he did not receive any response, he decided to file a writ petition before the Delhi High Court which was eventually dismissed.

Jain sought directions to the election commission to use “appropriate prototype of VVPAT system in 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”.

The Delhi High Court had dismissed the writ petition noting that the issue was squarely covered by the Supreme Court’s decision in Association of Democratic Reforms v. Election Commission of India & Anr.

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Meanwhile, in April 2024, the Supreme Court had dismissed a clutch of petition mandatory for cross-verification of the votes cast in EVMs with VVPAT slips.