Supreme Court's no to ballots papers

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed a plea seeking to revert to paper ballot voting in elections in the country, saying allegations of tampering with electronic voting machine (EVM) raked up only when people lost polls. "What happens is, when you win the election, EVMs are not tampered with. When you lose the election, EVMs are tampered (with)," remarked a bench of Justices Vikram Nath and P B Varale.

Apart from ballot paper voting, the plea sought several directions including 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. When petitioner-in-person K A Paul said he filed the PIL, the bench said, "You have interesting PILs.

How do you get these brilliant ideas?". There was corruption and in June 2024, the Election Commission announced they had seized Rs 9,000 crore, Paul responded. "But how does that make your relief which you are claiming here relevant?" asked the bench, adding "if you shift back to physical ballot, will there be no corruption?".