GUWAHATI: The Supreme Court of India on April 24 reserved its order on the plea for 100 per cent matching of EVMs and Voter Verified Paper Audit Trails (VVPATs) while also asserting that it has no control over elections, which is conducted by the Election Commission of India, itself a constitutional body.
A bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta had earlier said it needs clarification on certain aspects as there was some confusion in answers given by the ECI in its 'frequently asked questions' (FAQs) on EVMs.
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During the hearing, Datta pointed out to advocate Prashant Bhushan that no incidence of malicious programme loading with the symbol had been reported. “Out of the 5% VVPATs counted, any candidate can show if there is any mismatch," Datta queried.
“Till date there is no report of any such incident (malicious programme being loaded along with the symbol). We cannot control the election Mr Bhushan, we cannot control another constitutional authority," Justice Datta remarked.
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Justice Khanna reassured, "If there is room for improvement, we can certainly enhance it. The courts intervened twice: first, when we mandated the use of VVPAT, and second, when we increased the verification from one to five percent." The Supreme Court also emphasised that whenever suggestions were sought to enhance the voting process, the submissions consistently advocated a return to ballot papers’.