WEB DESK / New Delhi
The Supreme Court today issued notice to the Election Commission on a petition seeking to do away with a rule that puts the onus of proving discrepancy of results between electronic voting machines EVMs and voter-verifiable slips VVPAT.
The petitioner, Sunil Ahya, said the threat of jail term up to six months deters voters from making complaints even if they strongly feel there could be a discrepancy in what they entered in the EVM and what is printed on the VVPAT slip.
If a voter found a different symbol on the VVPAT slip other than the one for which the person had pressed the button in the EVM, the voter can complain to the polling authorities. The voter would next be asked to press the button again in front of the officials. If both the EVM and the VVPAT showed no discrepancy then, the person could be jailed for up to six months.
Ahya said this rule should be scrapped. Section 49 MA of Code of Election Rules says a complainant can be jailed for six months or fined Rs.1,000 if it turned out the machines were working fine.”Deviant behaviour and lodging a complaint… is an essential ingredient in a continuous exercise for improving the electoral process,”Ahya said. Last week, 21 opposition parties asked the Supreme Court to review its order on counting the slips of only five EVM paper trail machines in every assembly segment.
The parties reiterated its request for counting at least 50 per cent of VVPAT slips, a plea that was turned down by the SC earlier this month.