NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Monday asked the State Election Commission (SEC) as to why Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) with Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) cannot be used for the upcoming elections of municipal corporations (MCD) in the national capital.
Justice Rekha Palli asked the counsel for the SEC to take instructions on the issue and listed the matter for further hearing on March 22. The high court was hearing a petition by the Aam Aadmi Party, filed through MLA Saurabh Bhardwaj, seeking direction to the SEC to conduct the upcoming municipal elections with EVM which are compatible with VVPAT and not without them.
The party, represented through senior advocate Rahul Mehra and lawyer Rakesh Kumar Sinha, said the EVMs without VVPAT machines make it almost impossible to ascertain the accuracy of the machines and to rule out any tampering.
“The use of the old M-2 EVMs without VVPAT is in contravention of the express directions issued by the Supreme Court in Subramanian Swamy vs Election Commission of India, (2013), para-29, which emphatically recognised that the incorporation of a system of paper trail in EVMs is an indispensable requirement of free and fair elections,” the plea said. It alleged that the decision of the SEC to hold the MCD Elections 2022 with M-2 EVMs without VVPAT is manifestly wrong and amounts to a colorable exercise of power.