• Source:JND
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The Supreme Court on Monday issued a notice to the Election Commission (EC) and the government after a petition sought counting of all the VVPAT slips in the forthcoming election.

As per news agency ANI, the notice in this regard was served by justices B R Gavai and Sandeep Mehta while taking cognisance of the petitions filed by activist Arun Kumar Agrawal and the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR).

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The petitions also challenged the sequential verification of the VVPATs, asserting that the process takes time. "If simultaneous verification is done and more officers are deployed for counting in each assembly constituency, then complete VVPAT verification can be done in a matter of 5-6 hours," the plea stated.

It said the Centre has purchased over 24 lakh VVPATs for Rs 5,000 crore but slips of only approximately 20,000 devices are verified presently.

"Given that many questions are being raised by experts with regard to VVPATs and EVMs and the fact that a large number of discrepancies between EVM and VVPAT vote count have been reported in the past, it is imperative that all VVPAT slips are counted and a voter is given an opportunity to properly verify that his vote as cast in the ballot is also counted by allowing him to physically drop his/her VVPAT slip in the ballot box", the plea added.

Congress party has welcomed the SC notice in this regard. The party said the decision over the issue should be made before the polls commence.  “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 party leaders who have been demanding 100% VVPATs in order 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,” Jairam Ramesh posted on X.

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The Opposition parties have time and again questioned the EVMs, alleging that the machines are manipulated by the ruling party to get favourable results. Several political parties said the erstwhile practice of voting through ballot paper should be introduced for free and fair election.