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'When you lose, EVMs are tampered with; when you win, EVMs are fine', SC dismisses PIL

New Delhi, Nov 26: The Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed a public interest litigation (PIL) seeking directions to the Election Commission of India (ECI) to introduce ballot paper in place of EVMs (Electronic Voting Machines). A bench of Justices Vikram Nath and P.B. Varale rejected the prayer to return to the ballot system due to the alleged manipulability of EVMs. "When you lose, EVMs are tampered with; when you win, EVMs are fine," remarked the apex court, when the petitioner referred to the statements made by Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu and his predecessor Jagan Mohan Reddy on EVMs. It said, "When Chandrababu Naidu or Mr Reddy lost, they say that EVMs can be tampered with; when they win, they don't say anything. We are dismissing this. This is not the place where you argue all of this." Earlier in March, the Supreme Court had refused to entertain a similar PIL seeking directions to conduct the Lok Sabha polls through ballot paper. "How many petitions shall we entertain? We cannot go by assumptions. Every method has its plus and minus points. We cannot entertain this," it told the petitioner, the General Secretary of the Congress' Mathura District Committee. In her plea, the petitioner-in-person Nandini Sharma said that "concerns of the Opposition parties about the EVMs must be first addressed by holding elections via ballot paper, in place of acting at the pleasure of ruling BJP." Nandini Sharma prayed to set aside Section 61A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 empowering the ECI to conduct elections through EVMs. "The extra love and support of the ruling party towards EVMs creates doubts about the functioning of the EVM machines because the election results are supposed to remain the same, irrespective of EVMs or ballot paper," the PIL had contended. In April this year, rejecting a batch of petitions seeking mandatory cross-verification of the votes cast with Voter-Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) slips, the top court said that raising repeated and persistent doubts on EVMs, even without supporting evidence, can have the contrarian impact of creating distrust and can reduce citizen participation and confidence in elections. In his verdict, Justice Sanjiv Khanna (the incumbent CJI) said, "The suspicion that the EVMs can be configured or manipulated for the repeated or wrong recording of the vote(s) to favour a particular candidate should be rejected." "We acknowledge the right of voters to question the working of EVMs, which are but an electronic device that has a direct impact on election results. However, it is also necessary to exercise care and caution when we raise aspersions on the integrity of the electoral process. "Repeated and persistent doubts and despair, even without supporting evidence, can have the contrarian impact of creating distrust. This can reduce citizen participation and confidence in elections, essential for a healthy and robust democracy." The apex court had said that while it acknowledges the fundamental right of voters to ensure their vote is accurately recorded and counted, the same cannot be equated with the right to 100 per cent counting of VVPAT slips, or a right to physical access to the VVPAT slips, which the voter should be permitted to put in the drop box. It added that giving physical access to VVPAT slips to voters is "problematic and impractical", and will lead to misuse, malpractices and disputes. Saying that the weakness of the ballot paper system is well-known and documented, it rejected the submission to return to the ballot paper system as "foible and unsound". "We would be undoing electoral reforms by directing reintroduction of the ballot papers. EVMs offer significant advantages. They have effectively eliminated booth capturing by restricting the rate of vote casting to four votes per minute, thereby prolonging the time needed and thus checking the insertion of bogus votes. "EVMs have eliminated invalid votes, which were a major issue with paper ballots and had often sparked disputes during the counting process. Furthermore, EVMs reduce paper usage and alleviate logistical challenges. Finally, they provide administrative convenience by expediting the counting process and minimising errors," the SC said. Association for Democratic Reforms, one of the petitioners, had sought directions to return to the paper ballot system, or that the VVPAT slip be given to the voter to verify and put in the ballot box for counting, and/or there should be 100 per cent counting of the VVPAT slips in addition to electronic counting by the control unit. The PIL litigants contended that there exists a possibility of manipulating the EVMs and, therefore, the apex court should step in to instil confidence in the voters as they have the right to know that their franchise has been correctly recorded and counted. Justice Dipankar Datta -- who authored a separate opinion, but "whole-heartedly" concurred with Justice Khanna's verdict -- said the prayer to revert to the "paper ballot system" reveals the real intention of the petitioning association to discredit the system of voting through the EVMs and thereby derail the electoral process that is underway, by creating unnecessary doubts in the minds of the electorate. "I have serious doubts as regards the bona fides of the petitioning association when it seeks a reversion to the old order. Irrespective of the fact that in the past efforts of the petitioning association in bringing about electoral reforms have borne fruit, the suggestion put forth appeared inexplicable," Justice Datta said. In conclusion, he said the petitioners' apprehensions were misplaced and they have neither been able to demonstrate how the use of EVMs in elections violates the principle of free and fair elections nor have they been able to establish a fundamental right to 100 per cent VVPAT slips tallying with the votes cast.

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