The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused urgent hearing on a PIL seeking verification of Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) slips with Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) before the counting of votes, saying it is not interfering as the counting is scheduled on March 10 for assembly polls held in five states.
The plea has also said verification of VVPAT with EVMs, which are being conducted at five polling booths per assembly segment, be raised to five polling stations, a larger unit as one polling station has several polling booths.
“We are not interfering, let counting go on as per established practice, procedures and law. They (Election commission) are following judgment. They have made a statement (to this effect),†said the bench comprising Chief Justice N V Ramana and Justices A S Bopanna and Hima Kohli.The bench, in forenoon, reluctantly agreed to hear plea when senior lawyer Meenakshi Arora, appearing for petitioner Rakesh Kumar, mentioned it for urgent listing saying she will be intimating the poll panel about the proposed hearing.
Later in the afternoon, senior advocate Maninder Singh appeared for the poll panel and said the Commission has been following the verdict of the apex court in relation to VVPAT verification and the officials have been trained to counting of votes accordingly.
“We are not interfering at the moment,†the bench said, adding that the petition will be considered in the regular course only.In the morning when the plea was mentioned, the bench said, “You are coming at the last moment… Last minute ,if you are asking us to take it up then we do not have time. You know counting is the day after tomorrow. You should have mentioned it yesterday. You are mentioning it now. Assuming for a minute, we hear it tomorrow, will it be possible to send to all states a particular direction to follow.â€
