EVMs cannot be misused, trust EC’s good work, says top court
SC says voter satisfaction and trust are at core of poll process, reserves order
NEW DELHI: Underscoring the importance of voter satisfaction and trust in the electoral system, the Supreme Court on Thursday told petitioners who sought its direction to go back to using ballot papers not to suspect the efficacy of Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) and appreciate if the Election Commission does good work.
A bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta, which reserved its verdict on a batch of pleas seeking complete cross-verification of votes cast using EVMs with Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT), said over suspicion of everything is a problem. It made the remarks when advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for petitioner NGO ‘Association for Democratic Reforms’ (ADR), sought reversal of the poll panel’s 2017 decision to replace the transparent glass on VVPAT machines with an opaque glass through which a voter can see the slip only when the light is on for seven seconds.
“I understand it is the election eve. At least the bulb which glows for seven seconds should be allowed to glow continuously after the button is pressed in the EVM,” Bhushan pleaded.
The bench, which interacted for nearly an hour with senior deputy election commissioner Nitesh Kumar Vyas to understand the functioning of EVMs, told Bhushan that voter satisfaction and trust are at the core of the electoral process.
It said, “Everything cannot be suspected. You (Bhushan) cannot be critical of everything. If they (the EC) have done something good, you have to appreciate it. You don’t have to be critical of everything.”