“EVMs Not Tampered When You Win?” Supreme Court Says No To Paper Ballots

How do you get these brilliant ideas, the Supreme Court asked a petitioner Tuesday while dismissing his petition seeking to go back to ballot paper voting in elections in the country.

During the hearing, the petitioner, KA Paul, said that even leaders like Chandrababu Naidu and YS Jagan Mohan Reddy had questioned Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) tampering.

To this the bench said what happens is, if you win the elections, EVMs or voting machines are not tampered.

“When Chandrababu Naidu or Mr Reddy lost, they say that EVMs are tampered and when they won, they don’t say anything. How can we see this? We are dismissing this. This is not the place where you argue all of this,” remarked a bench of Justices Vikram Nath and PB Varale.

Mr Paul had also sought a directive to the Election Commission to disqualify candidates for a minimum of five years if found guilty of distributing money, liquor or other material inducement to the voters during polls.

“You have interesting PILs. How do you get these brilliant ideas?” asked the top court to the petitioner, who is the president of an organisation which has rescued over three lakh orphans and 40 lakh widows.

“Why are you getting into this political arena? Your area of work is very different,” the bench said.

Mr Paul argued that EVMs could be tampered with and suggested that India should follow the practices of countries like the United States which use paper ballots instead of EVMs.

EVMs pose a threat to democracy, said Mr Paul adding that even prominent figures like Elon Musk had voiced concerns over EVM tampering.

“Why you don’t want to be different from the rest of the world?” asked the bench.

In October, while announcing the poll dates for Maharashtra and Jharkhand, Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar again underlined that the EVMs are safe and robust, questioning if there is any example anywhere in the country where there is so much thrust on disclosure and participation.

“Matlab kitni baar (How many times)? Anyway,” the Chief Election Commissioner said as the EVM question was put to him yet again.

Citing the results over the last 10-15 elections, Mr Kumar said it can’t be that when results don’t go your way you start raising questions.

“Kitna dikhayenge, kaun dikhata hai itna bataiye. Koi ek process comparative bataiye poori country main jahan public disclosure, disclosure, disclosure, participation, participation itna adkhik ho. Koi ek bataiye process (How much more transparent can we be, you tell me. Tell me about one comparative process where there is so much public disclosure and participation. You show me one process),” he had said.