The Supreme Court on Thursday refused urgent hearing on a plea seeking a direction against the Election Commission to conduct mandatory verification of VVPAT paper slips at more than five polling stations in every constituency before counting of votes.
The petition, filed by Rakesh Kumar, a social activist from Uttar Pradesh, was listed for urgent hearing before a bench headed by the Chief Justice of India (CJI) as the counting of votes was only 48 hours away. Senior advocate Meenakshi Arora, appearing for the petitioner, told the court that the petition was seeking implementation of the 2019 Supreme Court judgment in N Chandrababu Naidu Vs Union of India, where the court had given the Election Commission five random Directed to ensure mandatory verification of VVPAT paper slips in the selected polling stations.
However, the court allowed the petitioner to submit a copy of the petition to the Election Commission and posted the matter for hearing on Wednesday. After lunch, the Election Commission appeared before the court and said that it is following the 2019 verdict and no changes can be made now. Election teams have already been sent to five states of Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Goa and Manipur for counting of votes.
Senior advocate Maninder Singh appeared for the Election Commission and informed the court that the election panel was adhering to the April 2019 decision. He told that the petition now wants that 5 should be increased to 25.
A bench of CJI Ramana and Justices AS Bopanna and Hima Kohli said, “We will not interfere if the Election Commission is complying with the (2019) decision.” Advocate Raj Kumar, appearing for the petitioner, submitted that a fresh prayer is being made to increase the verification from 5 to 25 polling stations to enhance the satisfaction of transparency during the counting of votes.
Kumar said, “Each polling station has more than one polling station. They are doing verification in only one booth.” He requested the court to hear the matter on Wednesday for Arora’s presence.
However, the bench said, “Since this is a fresh demand which you have made, we will have to consider whether to issue notice and seek the reply of the Election Commission. For this we do not need a hearing tomorrow. We can consider it some other day.” Earlier in the day, the court had observed whether any effective order could be passed to the states at the last minute.
Kumar further urged the court that VVPAT verification should be done during the first and second rounds of voting and not at the end. “It is expected that the polling agents of each political party will be present till the counting of votes is over,” the bench said. When the count is done, the trends change till the end. What can we do if an agent doesn’t last till the end.