SC refuses to entertain Cong PIL seeking directions to ECI to conduct polls through ballot paper

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday refused to entertain a Congress PIL seeking directions to the Election Commission of India (ECI) to conduct the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls through ballot paper.

A Bench presided over by Justice Sanjiv Khanna was hearing a plea filed by the General Secretary of the Congress' Mathura District Committee, raising concerns about the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs).

“How many petitions shall we entertain? We cannot go by assumptions. Every method has its plus and minus points. We cannot entertain this,” observed the Bench, also comprising Justices Dipankar Datta and Augustine George Masih.

In her plea, the petitioner-in-person Nandini Sharma said that "concerns of the Opposition parties about the EVMs must be first addressed by holding elections via ballot paper, in place of acting at the pleasure of ruling BJP."

Nandini Sharma prayed to set aside Section 61A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 empowering the ECI to conduct elections through EVMs.

"Whether plea of booth capture, ballot box stalling, invalid votes, waste of paper, etc against ballot paper is unjustified and irrational while one EVM machine stores 2,000 to 3,840 votes. This means that by manipulation in data of only 50 EVM machines per constituency, an electoral fraud of 1 lakh to 1.92 lakh is possible in the 'First Past the Post’ system'," the PIL said.

"The extra love and support of the ruling party towards EVMs creates doubts about the functioning of the EVM machines because the election results are supposed to remain the same, irrespective of EVMs or ballot paper", it added.