The Supreme Court on Monday increased the mandatory VVPAT verification from one EVM per constituency to five randomly selected EVMs in this year’s Lok Sabha polls. The Election Commission currently picks one polling booth randomly for the mandatory verification of VVPAT paper slip matching.
The Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi said, “increasing the VVPAT verification from one EVM per constituency to five is to ensure the greatest degree of accuracy, satisfaction in election process and not only political parties but the poor should be satisfied.”
CJI Gogoi, according to the LiveLaw website, said in his order, “We have interacted with the EC officials. At the outset we would like to observe we are not doubting…it may be possible that the system gives accurate results. But if the number increases , it would increase the greater satisfaction – the endeavour is to find to find a viable number of VVPAT.”
The petitioners had asked the Supreme Court to direct the Election Commission to conduct a minimum of 30% VVPAT paper slip verification. The Election Commission had said that this will lead to a delay in the announcing of results.
