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The Supreme Court dismissed the petition filed by Congress leader Kamal Nath for the purpose of a random verification of Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail(VVPAT) machines for the upcoming Assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh. Not finding any loopholes in in the existing mechanism of Election Commission of India, the SC declined the interference.
Senior Congress leader Kamal Nath moved the SC seeking random verification of VVPAT machines in the ensuing Assembly polls in MP. A similar plea was also moved by Congress leader Sachin Pilot. The petitioners also sought furnishing of electoral rolls in word format, instead of a scanned format in PDF, with the intention to enable search using ‘CTRL+F’ option.
Appearing for Kamal Nath, Senior Counsel Dr. Abhishek Manu Singhvi, submitted that there were around 60 lakh duplicate voters in poll-bound MP, and furnishing of the electoral roll in word format was necessary for verifying the authenticity.
On August 31, during the course of hearing, a bench comprising of Justices A K Sikri and Ashok Bhushan had asked the Election Commission the problem behind providing a word document. If the same can be given in Rajasthan, then why not in MP; Justice Sikri told the counsel for election commission.
However, today, the bench declared that mo judicial intervention was necessary with regard to arrangments made by ECI.
In his petition, Mr. Nath submitted that he, along with the other senior leaders from the State, had submitted a representation to the ECI, highlighting the 60 lakh duplicate, multiple, repeat, invalid, illegal, false etc. entries/voters in the electoral rolls of MP for Assembly Elections, 2018.
He further submitted that recently, the ECI dropped more than 24 lakh voters from the voter list, published in January 2018 for the State of MP, and highlighted that there hasn’t been an increase in the number of voters vis-à-vis the State’s population. With the aforementioned assertions, he demanded that the voter list under Rules 22 (1) (c) of The Registration of Electors Rules, 1960 to be prepared at least 30 days in advance from the date of election notification.
Mr. Nath then made a reference to the judgment rendered by the SC in 2013, wherein it had ordered the usage of VVPAT machines for all forthcoming elections in a phased manner, and demanded an overhaul of the operation of the machines. For instance, he alleged the existence of a mass shortage of the requisite number of VVPATs, as well as the usage of same EVMs by transporting them from one place to another, contending that the election commission is not using any state machinery nor the central machinery for the transportation of the EVM’s instead private transporters are being used for the transportation of the EVM.
Besides this, he also suggested increasing the visibility time of VVPAT paper trail from 7 seconds to 15 seconds, making sure the paper trails are sealed in a box and preserved for a minimum of 120 days, immediate recounting of the votes if a candidate is not satisfied, and using high-quality thermal printers and thermal papers at the polling booths. He also sought a direction to the ECI for not posting in key positions, any such officials who are facing any disciplinary proceeding or inquiry.
In summation, the following directions were demanded by Mr. Nath:
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