The Supreme Court will today give its verdict on a number of petitions that seek directions to tally Voter-Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) slips with votes cast via Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) during the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
A bench of Justices Dipankar Datta and Sanjiv Khanna had reserved the verdict on the petitions on April 18 after two days of hearing.

The bench had extensive interaction with an Election Commission of India (ECI) official during the nearly two-day hearing to gain understanding of how EVMs operate.

When representing the poll panel, senior attorney Maninder Singh informed the court that although electronic voting machines are unhackable and cannot be tampered with, human error is still a possibility.

Underscoring that the electoral process has to have sanctity, Justice Datta told Mr Singh, “You have to allay the apprehensions, both in the court and outside the court. Let nobody have the apprehension that something which is expected is not being done.”

“Everything cannot be suspected. You cannot be critical of everything. If they (the ECI) have done something good, you have to appreciate it. You don’t have to be critical of everything,” the bench told the counsel of one of the petitioners.

The Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and activist Arun Kumar Agarwal have filed the petitions. All VVPAT slips have been requested to be counted by Mr. Agarwal. By using VVPATs, voters can confirm that their vote has been “counted as recorded” by using the ADR’s petition, which asks the court to order the Election Commission and the Center to take appropriate action.