The Supreme Court on Monday sought response from the Election Commission on a plea for cross verifying the count in electronic voting machines (EVMs) with VVPATs (voter verifiable paper audit trail) in all polling booths which, at present, is limited to five randomly selected polling stations per assembly constituency.

While hearing a PIL filed by NGO ‘Association of Democratic Reforms’, a bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Bela M Trivedi asked the petitioner to serve a copy of its petition to the EC so that the poll panel could respond by the next date of hearing.

Advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for the NGO, said there was no procedure for a voter to verify that her vote had been “counted as recorded” which is an indispensable part of voter verifiability and the EC’s failure to provide for the same went against the very object of the directions issued by the apex court for VVPATs. “The prevalent procedure and practice of the Election Commission of India in cross verifying the count in EVMs with VVPATs in five randomly selected polling stations per assembly constituency is not in consonance with the spirit, purport and object of this court’s directions,” the petition said. While agreeing to examine the issue, the bench told Bhushan, “You are being over suspicious about EVMs. ”

The petitioner alleged that in one polling station of Mydukur assembly constituency in Andhra Pradesh in the 2019 general elections, the returning officer verified that there was a discrepancy of 14 votes in the EVM and VVPAT counts. “The EVM count was 233 votes whereas the VVPAT count was 219 votes. In other words, 6% of the counted votes in that EVM had not been cast. The returning officer of the constituency later clarified that the discrepancy was true and was due to nonclearance of votes polled in the mock poll conducted at 7 am on the polling day from the EVM,” the petition said.