SC seeks EC response on opposition's plea on counting of VVPAT slips, hearing on March 25

The Supreme Court on Friday sought the Election Commission's response to a plea by Opposition leaders seeking the matching of at least 50 per cent of the Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) slips with EVMs in each constituency before the Lok Sabha results are declared. 

A bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and justices Deepak Gupta and Sanjiv Khanna listed the plea filed by over 20 opposition parties for March 25 and asked the Election Commission to depute an officer to assist the court. 

Several opposition leaders, including Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu, Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and others, had moved the apex court on Thursday demanding the Electronic Voting Machines to be tamper-free. 

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The parties also demanded that at least 50 per cent of the voter verifiable paper audit trails (VVPATs) be counted and matched with the tally of EVMs.

The application has been moved by 21 Opposition parties, including the Congress, Nationalist Congress Party, Aam Aadmi Party, CPI(Marxist), CPI, Trinamool Congress, Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party, Rashtriya Lok Dal, Loktantrik Janata Dal and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK).

The move comes after the Opposition parties met at NCP chief Sharad Pawar's residence.The parties had raised apprehensions in a meeting with the EC in February about the credibility of EVMs, although the poll panel has denied allegations of machines being tampered with.

The EC, while announcing the Lok Sabha election schedule, had said that mandatory checking of EVMs and VVPAT will be done on the basis of one polling station for each Lok Sabha constituency.