SC junks fresh petition on 100% VVPAT-EVM match, calling it a nuisance

New Delhi, ay 21: The vacation bench of the Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed a petition filed seeking 100% verification of the Voter Verified Paper Audited Trails(VVPAT) with the Electronic Voting Machines(EVM), calling it a nuisance.

"We won't entertain such pleas again and again," says the apex court, adding that the court cannot come in the way of people electing thier representatives. The PIL was filed by an NGO Techno4All. A vacation bench of the Apex Court did not find any merit in the petition filed by the technocrats.

The petition was filed by a collective of technocrats named "Tech4All" stating the EVMs are not reliable and vulnerable to tampering. As a long term solution, they sought for replacement of EVMs with Optical Ballot Scan machines. With regard to the present general elections, they sought for subjecting all EVMs to VVPAT verification.

However, the bench of Justices Arun Mishra and M R Shah did not find any merit in the plea and dismissed it.

Earlier, the SC had directed the Election Commission of India to increase VVPAT verification to one EVM to five EVMs in each assembly segment of a parlimanetary constituency.

This was ordered in a petition filed by leaders of 21 political parties. Though they had sought a review of this order later by seeking increase up to 50% verification, the Court dismissed it.