The Supreme Court on Thursday issued a notice to the central government and the Election Commission over use of paper trails in Electronic Voting Machines. The bench of Justices Jasti Chelameswar and S Abdul Nazeer responded to a petition by Bahujan Samaj Party that challenged use of EVMs without paper trail in the elections. The plea sought use of paper trail with every EVM voting so that there is no tampering with machine. Meanwhile, the court deferred the matter till May 8.
Former minister and senior lawyer P. Chidmabaram, who appeared for BSP in the case, alleged large scale tampering in recent state elections and said that not only BSP, even Congress and AAP have expressed doubt over credibility of EVMs. He also said that paper trail is yet to introduced with EVMs despite a firm order by the Supreme Court in April 2013.
The apex court’s move also comes a day after opposition leaders met President Pranab Mukherjee . A united opposition led by Congress on Wednesday met Mukherjee to lodge its protest against inaction by election commission over EVM row. Earlier, Opposition MPs from across the political spectrum demanded the use of VVPAT-enabled Electronic Voting Machines to avoid the possibility of tampering. Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal also demanded that paper trail of votes be re-implemented for all elections in the country.
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