SC Dismisses Plea for Permission to Demonstrate that EVMS can be Tampered with

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India Tomorrow

NEW DELHI, DECEMBER 02— The Supreme Court of India on Monday dismissed a petition that sought directions to the Election Commission to allow permission to demonstrate that Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) can be tampered with.

The petition was filed by Tamil actor-turned politician Mansoor Ali Khan, who had contested and lost Lok Sabha election from Dindigul constituency in Tamil Nadu in May 2019. He wanted to demonstrate his claim under the supervision of retired judges that EVMs can be tampered with.

A bench comprising Chief Justice of India S A Bobde, Justices Surya Kant and B R Gavai dismissed his petition.

In run-up to the Lok Sabha elections in May this year, the apex court had declined Opposition parties’ request to order the Election Commission to increase the count for the verification of voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) slips with EVMs.

A bench headed by the then Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi had on May 7 said “we are not willing to modify our order.” In its previous order on April 8, the top court had directed the Election Commission to increase the matching of VVPAT slips with EVMs from one to five polling booths in each Assembly segment of the Parliamentary constituency.

More than 20 opposition parties had moved the review plea seeking order for matching of 50% EVMs with VVPAT slips. The Opposition leaders led by N. Chandrababu Naidu of TDP had told the top court that “increase from one to five is not a reasonable number and does not lead to satisfaction desired by this court.”

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