A couple of days before the poll results are to be out, the Supreme Court on Friday turned down an attempt by the Congress to seek a verification of votes polled in the Gujarat Assembly elections through a system of matching the paper trails attached to Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) across randomly selected booths in each constituency.
The Court said it is not willing to interfere with the counting process unless there is material to justify such a demand. Gujarat is the first State to have polls with 100 per cent voter verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) system fitted to EVMs.
Gujarat Congress secretary in his application, argued by senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, pointed out that the Election Commission on December 8 had issued instruction directing verification of VVPAT slips with the poll results in one booth of each constituency. Singhvi argued this was such a miniscule percentage by which no error, if any, could be detected. He requested the Court to extend this circular to at least 15 per cent booths in each assembly seat.
The bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra, Justices AM Khanwilkar and DY CHandrachud felt no need to interfere with the election process in the absence of any material to justify such a demand. The Court said, “The Court cannot supplant the jurisdiction of the Election Commission. When it comes to this, we must exercise greater caution. How do we establish that EC decision was arbitraryIJ There is nothing before us to raise a doubt or to discredit the EC decision.”
Singhvi said the very fact that the EC had directed a sample verification of votes polled through VVPAT vindicated the petitioner's apprehension. However, he submitted that to assess the same, verifying the votes in one booth will serve no purpose considering the fact that there are 300-400 booths in a constituency. Further, he pointed out that such a direction will reassure voters about the conduct of free and fair elections, which is part of basic structure in a democracy.
The bench said that there is a difference between allaying apprehension and acting in aid of free and fair elections. The Court said that the political party Congress could do good by filing a substantive petition seeking electoral reforms in this regard. The petitioner, subsequently, withdrew his plea on this ground.