New Delhi, Mar 15 (IANS): The Supreme Court on Friday refused to entertain a Congress PIL seeking directions to the Election Commission of India (ECI) to conduct the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls through ballot paper.
A Bench presided over by Justice Sanjiv Khanna was hearing a plea filed by the General Secretary of the Congress' Mathura District Committee, raising concerns about the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs).
“How many petitions shall we entertain? We cannot go by assumptions. Every method has its plus and minus points. We cannot entertain this,” observed the Bench, also comprising Justices Dipankar Datta and Augustine George Masih.
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.
"Whether plea of booth capture, ballot box stalling, invalid votes, waste of paper, etc against ballot paper is unjustified and irrational while one EVM machine stores 2,000 to 3,840 votes. This means that by manipulation in data of only 50 EVM machines per constituency, an electoral fraud of 1 lakh to 1.92 lakh is possible in the 'First Past the Post’ system'," the PIL said.
"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", it added.
Comment on this article
Dilip, Kudla
Sat, Mar 16 2024The EVM must print out a receipt of voting in which a unique number is printed; by which the voter can trace his/ her vote on a national database of registered parties. Only in a case like this can transparency be assured in the voting process of the EVM system. Why are the Congress, other parties not asking for such transparency ?
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Gautam Das, Bangalore
Fri, Mar 15 2024SC If you say ‘How many petition we can entertain’ then it says there is a serious flaw and majority of people are seeking justice from you. It’s not a matter to be swept under the carpet.
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Dilip, Kudla
Sat, Mar 16 2024Spot on !
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Dev, Mangalore
Fri, Mar 15 2024Election of Chandigarh Mayor was overturned by Supreme Court due to ballots, if EVM were used then no recourse exists to verify the rigging. We can only expect some justice from D Y Chandrachur it seems. This ruling only helps doubtful process where even one vote of the candidate was hijacked by EVMs. Conduct of Free and Fair elections to uphold the sanctity of the democratic process is victim of the ruling despite Supreme Court advocates demonstrating the hacking of the machines. Lastly the cost of EVMs are far greater than ballots which is a lame excuse always put forth by Election Commission.
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real kujuma, kodial
Fri, Mar 15 2024it is funny that the so called largest democracy of the world is not following ballot method as there is less chance of malpractice than on an evm machine....even developed countries do not follow this method....very strange that any review to this is even nullifed by the courts....
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Agnes, Mangalore
Fri, Mar 15 2024Our courts are namesake courts useless and spineless.
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Dilip, Kudla
Sat, Mar 16 2024You are absolutely right.
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