ECI Opposes DMK's Plea in Madras HC Against Third-Generation M3 EVMs
New Delhi: The Madras high court on Friday (April 5) adjourned till June 25 the hearing on a writ petition filed by the DMK, questioning the design of the third-generation M3 electronic voting machines (EVMs) in which the voter verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) printers are placed between the balloting units and the control units with no direct connection between the two segments.
The first division bench of Chief Justice Sanjay V. Gangapurwala and Justice J. Sathya Narayan Prasad adjourned the matter after the lawyer for the petitioner, N.R. Elango, told the court that his client was not seeking any relief for the coming 2024 parliamentary elections and all issues raised in the petition were only for future elections.
Appearing for the Election Commission of India, lawyer Niranjan Rajagopalan vehemently opposed the petition, stating that writ petitions filed by political parties from time to end up creating absolutely unnecessary apprehension in the minds of the voters about the efficacy of the EVMs. “It will send a wrong message. People will start doubting the EVMs,” the ECI’s counsel stated.
“Raising questions over the use of the machines during every other election amounts to flogging a dead horse. It doesn’t serve any better purpose,” he said.
The ECI counsel said the third-generation M3 EVM machines were introduced in 2013, and gradually, their use has been increased in phases during different elections. “These M3 machines were used extensively in the 2021 Tamil Nadu assembly elections in which the petitioner party (DMK) had won,” he submitted to the court.
On the court wanting to know why the petition was filed, DMK’s lawyer said that his client came to know about the issues raised in the petition in January 2024. It had approached the chief election commissioner about it during his recent visit to Tamil Nadu. However, “due to inaction” on the part of the CEC, it went ahead with the petition.
The petition filed on April 3 on behalf of the DMK by the party’s organisational secretary R.S. Bharathi, also sought a direction to the ECI to put together procedures for approval of the EVMs. It also called for a direction to frame a set of guidelines to be followed by returning officers while dealing with applications made by election agents to count the paper slips collected as part of the VVPAT system.
Meanwhile, a bunch of petitions around counting of VVPATs are being heard at the Supreme Court. Hearing the case on April 1, a bench of Justices B.R. Gavai and Sandeep Mehta issued notices to the Union government and the ECI seeking their response on the issues raised, particularly pertaining to counting of all VVPAT slips in the general elections instead of the current practice of picking five randomly selected polling stations in each assembly segment.
One of the petitioners has stated to the court, “Given that many questions are being raised by experts with regard to VVPATs and EVMs, and the fact that a large number of discrepancies between EVM and VVPAT vote count have been reported in the past, it is imperative that all VVPAT slips are counted and a voter is given an opportunity to properly verify that his vote as cast in the ballot is also counted by allowing him to physically drop his/her VVPAT slip in the ballot box.”
A plea to the court also has an alternative suggestion – a direction to the ECI to make the glass of the VVPAT machine transparent, and the duration of the light long enough so that a voter can see the paper recording their vote cut and drop into the vote box.
The Supreme Court will hear the case after two weeks.
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