In a significant development, the Supreme Court on Friday, 26 April 2024 dismissed the pleas seeking 100% cross-verification of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) data with Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) records.
Justice Khanna : We have rejected all the pleas.#EVMVVPAT #LokSabhaElections2024📷 #SupremeCourt
— Live Law (@LiveLawIndia) April 26, 2024
The verdict was delivered by a bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta. Although the cases were reserved for orders on 18 April 2024, they were relisted on 24 April 2024 as the Bench sought technical clarifications from the Election Commission. Considering the responses provided, the orders were pronounced today.
Regarding the conclusion of the judgments, Justice Khanna stated in Court that the requests for reverting to ballot paper voting, complete EVM-VVPAT verification, and providing VVPAT slips to voters to deposit in the ballot box have all been turned down. He said, “We have rejected all of them, after referring to the protocol in place, technical aspects, and data which is on record“.
This puts to an end all the propaganda that “news” portals like The News Minute tried to peddle. They had published a misleading article on EVMs and the VVPATs. The headlines of their news report as usual portrayed a different image when compared to the article. In their report on the VVPATs, the report’s headline reads, “VVPATs print extra slip with BJP lotus symbol during mock polls in Kerala“, however, inside the article, the truth is mentioned, “…when the machines were initialised, three out of 10 VVPAT machines printed out ‘test prints’. All these three prints had the BJP’s lotus symbol on it and the words ‘not to be counted’ were written on top in small letters.”
VVPATs print extra slip with BJP lotus symbol during mock polls in Kerala
The same VVPAT machines printed another extra slip with the lotus symbol during the second round of mock poll as well. The issue was rectified only during the third round.https://t.co/d3V8gekGZ1— Dhanya Rajendran (@dhanyarajendran) April 18, 2024
Over and over again, the Editor-in-Chief, Dhanya Rajendran tried to wash her hands off the fake news peddling by stating that the article mentioned VVPATs and not EVMs.
With this verdict by the Supreme Court, TNM and Dhanya’s propaganda goes bust once and for all.
(with inputs from Live Law)
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