The Supreme Court, on Thursday, reserved its verdict on a batch of petitions led by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) seeking 100 per cent cross-verification of the votes exercised through the Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) with that of the printed slips generated by the attached Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT).

The Election Commission of India (ECI) defended the integrity of the electronic voting system, asserting that it was not prone to any external interference or manipulations.

Reserving the verdict after a hearing spread over two days (April 16 & 18), a bench of Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Dipankar Datta said that everything cannot be suspected and the good work done by the poll panel should be appreciated.

As advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for the ADR, raised doubts over some of the aspects involving the process of the working of the EVMs and VVPATs, Justice Khanna said, “Now you are going too far. Everything can’t be suspected. Please also appreciate if they (the Election Commission) have done something good. We heard you because we are also concerned. Does everything have to be explained to you?”

The bench observed, “You need not understand every technical element. The voter has to be satisfied with the explanation given by ECI. The Evidence Act also says official acts are normally presumed to be done validly.”

However, the bench expressed its reservations on the information that the poll panel’s official furnished to the bench in the course of the hearing today and the one that has been put in the public domain by the Election Commission.

“There seems to be some disconnect between what you are telling us and what is available in the public domain. That needs to be bridged,” Justice Khanna told the poll panel official who is directly dealing with the EVMs and VVPATs AT Nirvachan Sadan. There are 17 lakh VVPATs.

During the hearing, Justice Datta said, “This is an electoral process. There has to be sanctity. Let nobody have apprehension that something, which is expected, is not being done.”

Justice Khanna too stated that the “voter trust is to be maintained and protected. How do we ensure the integrity of the entire mechanism?”

The Election Commission was not warm to a suggestion made by the petitioners on the counting of the VVPAT slips along with EVMs. The EC official said that it cannot be in the current election.

The bench asked the EC official if such an option was considered by the poll panel.

The poll panel also asserted that there was no discrepancy between the votes polled and vote counted in the 2019 Lok Sabha election.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta sought to address the bench as an officer of the court, stating that these petitions are filed on the eve of the elections and adversely affect the voters. He said that stories are planted in the media.

An unimpressed bench said these petitions were filed last year and if they were heard then, the hearing would not have coincided with the ongoing elections. “If we had heard last year, this point would not have been raised. We could not do (hear) it because of work load,” Justice Datta told the solicitor general with Justice Khanna restraining him from talking about planted stories in the media.

Both advocate Prashant Bhushan appearing for the ADR and senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan appearing for petitioner Arun Kumar Agrawal in their rejoinder arguments sought to question some of the points in the information about the working of EVMs and VVPATs furnished by the poll panel official.

As Bhushan said the EVMs and VVPATs are programmed and it is entirely possible that they can be interfered with and that is why there is public disquiet, Justice Khanna asked him to confine himself to legal arguments.

Gopal Sankaranarayanan said, “We are not making allegations against the Election Commissions. We have doubts and EC too does not say that electronic voting machines are perfect.” Senior advocate Sankaranarayanan raised certain questions which the bench asked senior advocate Maninder Singh appearing for the Election Commission to respond to.

The top court was hearing a plea by the ADR and others seeking more extensive cross-verification of EVM data against VVPAT records. At present it is just two per cent of the total polling booths in a constituency where this exercise is undertaken.