The Supreme Court has ordered that random verification of Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) be increased to five per constituency.
As per reports on Monday, the electronic voting machines (EVMs) will be randomly selected. The Supreme Court said that this practice will ensure the greatest degree of accuracy and satisfaction in the election process.
At present, the Election Commission matches VVPAT paper slips of 4,125 EVMs. With this SC ruling, ECI will have to count VVPAT slips of 20,625 EVMs.
Last week, the Supreme Court had asked the 21 Opposition parties to file an affidavit till April 8 underlining the rationale behind their demand to increase in random checking of VVPAT to 50 percent from the existing system of one per each assembly constituency to file an.
As many as 21 opposition parties led by Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu had filed a petition to seek a direction to the ECI to increase the VVPAT sample survey by cross-checking at least 50 percent voting machines in each assembly seat.
The parties included Telugu Desam Party, Nationalist Congress Party, Aam Aadmit Party, Communist Party of India (Marxist), Communist Party of India, Trinamool Congress, National Conference, Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party, Rashtriya Lok Dal, Loktantrik Janata Dal and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam.
Read more: Election Commission Decides to Use VVPAT System
The plea was heard by a two-member bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Deepak Gupta.