On Monday a bench of Justice BR Gavai and Justice Sandeep Mehta issued a formal notice to the Election Commission of India (ECI) in response to a petition filed by prominent lawyer and activist, Arun Kumar Agrawal. 

The petition pertains to the meticulous count of Voter-Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) slips during elections, challenging the existing practice sanctioned by the ECI.

At the core of the petition is the contention that the current practice of VVPAT verification, which involves the random selection of only 5 Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) per assembly segment, is inadequate to ensure the integrity of the electoral process. 

Agrawal's plea advocates for a comprehensive tallying of every vote recorded in the EVMs against their corresponding VVPAT slips. This, the petitioner argues, is essential to guarantee accuracy and transparency in election outcomes.

The petition also calls for an amendment to the existing procedure to allow voters the opportunity to physically deposit their VVPAT slips in a designated ballot box. This proposed measure seeks to empower voters to independently verify that their votes have been accurately captured and counted by the EVMs.

Central to the legal challenge is Guideline No. 14.7(h) of the Manual on Electronic Voting Machine and VVPAT, dated August 2023, issued by the ECI. The petitioner argues that this guideline, which mandates sequential verification of VVPAT slips, leads to undue delays in the counting process. 

Agrawal proposes an alternative approach of simultaneous verification, coupled with the deployment of additional officers for counting in each assembly constituency, with the aim of expediting the verification process.

The petition also highlights a significant dissonance between the substantial government expenditure—amounting to nearly ₹5,000 crores—allocated for the purchase of approximately 24 lakh VVPATs and the limited number of slips that are actually verified, estimated to be only around 20,000 VVPATs. This discrepancy, coupled with past instances of reported discrepancies between EVM and VVPAT vote counts, underscores the urgency of the matter.

The legal challenge before the Supreme Court is situated within the broader context of the ongoing debate surrounding electoral transparency and fairness. Notably, similar concerns regarding VVPAT verification were raised prior to the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, prompting leaders of 21 opposition political parties to petition the apex court. 

While the court subsequently increased the number of random EVMs subject to VVPAT verification from 1 to 5 per assembly segment, subsequent pleas seeking verification of all EVMs were dismissed.