The Supreme Court on 15 December refused to entertain a plea of the Gujarat Congress seeking counting of at least 20 percent of the paper trail slips manually along with votes cast in the EVMs in each constituency of the state.
It said that the court cannot interfere unless the Election Commission of India's decision to restrict the EVM-VVPAT paper trail to one booth per constituency is proved "arbitrary", "illegal" or "malafide".
PAAS leader Hardik Patel said he didn’t agree with the SC’s stand on the issue. He asked, “Why are VVPATs used in the first place? It is used for smooth counting of votes wherever there is a fault.” He also said that if the EVMs don’t malfunction then BJP will lose the election, adding that he had a “100 percent doubt on EVMs.”
A bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud permitted petitioner Mohammad Arif Rajput, a Gujarat Congress leader, to withdraw his plea but granted liberty to file a comprehensive petition later seeking election reforms.
The apex court said that a debate on polls reforms can only take place after the election process in the state is over.
Senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, appearing for Rajput, said that the counting of the slips of the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) machines along with the votes cast in the Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) count in at least 20 percent of the booths of each constituency would reassure the people about the fairness of the polls.
The court further observed that the Gujarat Congress could approach the matter by filing a writ petition seeking electoral reforms. It also said that “electoral process in a democracy is of utmost importance,” and that it could not interfere on the mere insistence of a political party.
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