Supreme Court rejects pleas seeking 100 percent verification of votes on EVM with VVPAT slips

The order was passed by a two-judge bench comprising Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Dipankar Datta.

Justice Datta said as quoted by NDTV, "While balanced perspective is important, but blindly doubting a system can breed scepticism and thus, meaningful criticism is needed, be it judiciary, legislature etc, Democracy is all about maintaining harmony and trust among all the pillars. By nurturing a culture of trust and collaboration, we can strengthen the voice of our democracy."

The Supreme Court last week told the Election Commission of India that ‘there has to be sanctity in the electoral process,’ asking it to explain in detail the steps of cross-verifying VVPAT slips with EVMs.

VVPAT is a separate system for verifying votes that allows voters to confirm if their votes were recorded accurately.

In such a system, an EVM has a control unit and a balloting unit connected by a cable. These are also connected with a VVPAT -- Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail -- machine. This machine enables a voter to see if the vote was cast properly and went to the candidate he/she supports.

Currently, VVPAT verification is conducted on just five randomly chosen EVMs in each assembly segment.

Amid the Opposition's apprehensions regarding the EVM voting system, the petitions seek a direction to cross-verify every vote cast on EVMs with the paper slips generated by the VVPAT system.