New Delhi, Apr 17:
The Supreme Court on Tuesday disagreed with the idea of a return to paper ballots to restore the “little man’s” confidence in the electoral process, saying machines give “absolutely accurate results” unless human bias maligns them.
“Human weaknesses, including bias, may lead to a problem. Machines without human intervention would give absolutely accurate results,” Justice Sanjiv Khanna, heading a two-judge Bench, observed.
The court was open to the testing of the “actual performance” of electronic voting machines (EVMs). It said the review should be wholly based on data provided by the Election Commission, and not opinion garnered from private quarters, including polls about EVMs.
Supreme Court to hear pleas for cross-verification of votes cast with VVPAT slips on April 16
The court fixed the hearing on Thursday (April 18), on the eve of the first phase of the Lok Sabha election.
The Bench, also comprising Justice Dipankar Datta, peremptorily rejected the idea of returning to paper ballots.
“We are in our sixties… We have seen in our lives what happened when it was ballot papers. We have seen the drawbacks of the past,” Justice Khanna said.
The court was hearing separate petitions filed by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and by Arun Kumar Agarwal highlighting the voter’s fundamental right to information about his vote.
