Sc rejects cong plea to verify evms with paper trail in gujarat

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.” > Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee has filed a petition with the > Supreme Court, seeking direction to the Election Commission to count

> and cross-verify at least 25% of the VVPAT paper trail votes with > the EVM votes on counting day. pic.twitter.com/fmVCDF6jbe > — Congress (@INCIndia) December 15, 2017 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. Published: 15 Dec 2017, 2:20 PM IST