Gujarat High Court dismisses PIL demanding VVPAT for Lok Sabha polls

  • | Wednesday | 20th March, 2019

As per sources, ECI has 3L VVPAT machines He had also challenged the constitutional validity of this provision because it empowers a returning officer to reject an application for counting of votes by counting printed slips. He had also sought the court's intervention in the provision of the returning officer's discretion on whether to count printed paper slips on demand by a candidate, or not. He had sought the court's direction to ECI and the Centre to procure adequate number of machines so that the Lok Sabha elections could be held smoothly. The Gujarat High Court, on Tuesday, dismissed a public interest litigation (PIL) seeking directions to the Election Commission of India (ECI) and the Centre to procure adequate numbers of electronic voting machines (EVMs) and Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) machines for the upcoming general elections.

The Gujarat High Court, on Tuesday, dismissed a public interest litigation (PIL) seeking directions to the Election Commission of India (ECI) and the Centre to procure adequate numbers of electronic voting machines (EVMs) and Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) machines for the upcoming general elections. Notably, the dismissal came from the division bench of Acting Chief Justice AS Dave and Justice Biren Vaishnav, that had earlier reserved its verdict in the case. Citing information obtained under the Right to Information Act, advocate KR Koshti, who appeared as party-in-person in the PIL, had submitted to the court that ECI has only three lakh VVPAT machines as against over nine lakh EVMs, which are in working condition. He had sought the court's direction to ECI and the Centre to procure adequate number of machines so that the Lok Sabha elections could be held smoothly. He had also sought the court's intervention in the provision of the returning officer's discretion on whether to count printed paper slips on demand by a candidate, or not. The lawyer had also challenged Rule 56D(2) of the Conduct of Election Rules which does not make it mandatory for a returning officer to count printed slips from VVPAT upon demand for counting by a candidate contesting the polls. He had also challenged the constitutional validity of this provision because it empowers a returning officer to reject an application for counting of votes by counting printed slips. Koshti had also sought directions to the ECI to make it mandatory to count the printed paper slips in the drop box of the printer in a polling station in all general elections in the future, where a VVPAT machine is used. Last Word The dismissal came from the division bench of Acting Chief Justice AS Dave and Justice Biren Vaishnav, that had earlier reserved its verdict in the case. As per sources, ECI has 3L VVPAT machines

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