The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a plea seeking a direction to the Election Commission of India (ECI) to ensure 100% manual counting of Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) slips alongside electronic counting through Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs).

A bench comprising Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna and Justices Sanjay Kumar and K.V. Viswanathan declined to interfere with the Delhi High Court’s earlier decision, which had dismissed the public interest litigation (PIL) on similar grounds.

During the hearing, the Bench observed that it would not revisit issues that had already been settled by the court in earlier rulings.

Accordingly, the court dismissed the special leave petition filed by the appellant-PIL litigant.

Back in April 2024, the apex court had similarly rejected multiple petitions seeking mandatory cross-verification of EVM votes with VVPAT slips.

At the time, a Bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna (now CJI) and Dipankar Datta had held that while voters have a fundamental right to ensure their vote is recorded and counted accurately, this does not imply a right to 100% VVPAT slip counting or physical access to the slips.

The current appellant had initially approached the Delhi High Court seeking the adoption of a new VVPAT prototype. As per the proposed model, the VVPAT printer would remain open, and the printed slip would be manually verified by the voter and handed over to the presiding officer before leaving the polling booth.

The Delhi High Court, however, dismissed the petition on August 12, 2023, stating that the matter had already been conclusively addressed by the Supreme Court.