HC verdict on Swamy's plea on EVMs on Tuesday

Swamy had said EC should return to ballot system as EVMs not tamper proof

PTI | January 17, 2012



The Delhi high court is likely to pronounce its verdict tomorrow on a plea of Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy that a paper trail be incorporated to record the votes cast through electronic voting machine (EVMs) or return to the old system of paper ballots.

A bench of acting chief justice A K Sikri and Justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw, which had reserved its verdict, is expected to pronounce the judgement on Tuesday.

Earlier, Swamy and the Election Commission of India (ECI), represented by lawyer Ashok Desai, had concluded the arguments.

The EC should return to the ballot system to avoid tampering as there was lack of transparency in EVMs at the time of polls, Swamy had said.

Either paper printouts should be incorporated in EVMs by the EC or it should return to the ballot paper system as EVMs are not tamper-proof, he said.

European countries like the UK, the US and Japan have rejected them (EVMs) due to their failure and they preferred paper ballots for their elections, he had said.

Seeking the court's direction, he also said "the EVM's brain, micro controller is being manufactured in foreign countries like Japan, which themselves do not use the machine due to its demerits."

The EC, however, opposed the plea saying that returning to the paper ballots would not be feasible as it would require immense expenditure as there are over 73 crore voters here.

"The machine (EVM) accommodates as many as 64 party symbols and because of electronically organised data, the counting became faster," Desai, appearing for the EC, had said.

Comments

 

Other News

What ails India`s skill development ecosystem

India’s skill development programmes were designed with a goal to make the young population ready with market-required skills and competencies, and to provide them with better employment opportunities. Yet the outcomes have fallen short of that goal: though over 1.6 crore individuals were trained acr

Cabinet passes resolution applauding PM on term record

The Union Cabinet on Wednesday passed a resolution marking June 10, 2026, as a historic milestone in the journey of Indian democracy applauding Narendra Modi for becoming the longest-serving elected PM of the country. By establishing a record of 4,399 days of continuous service as an elected PM, he has s

Testing the teachers, moving the goalposts

A teacher was appointed in 1999, before the Right to Education (RTE) Act came into force, and appointed under the rules that existed at that time. She gave the necessary test, passed it, passed the interview, and was appointed. Over the next 26 years, she taught thousands of children, faced transfer orde

`Focus on infra, reforms, digital connectivity has created strong foundation for growth`

In a step towards the operationalisation of the Bharat Audyogik Vikas Yojana (BHAVYA), union minister of commerce & industry Piyush Goyal launched the BHAVYA Portal on Monday in New Delhi.   Addressing the gathering, Goyal said that the BHAVYA scheme will adopt a competit

Govt, RBI announce major reforms to attract FPI

The finance ministry on Friday announced a series of measures aimed at enhancing the ease of investment for individual Persons Resident Outside India (PROIs) and Foreign Portfolio Investors (FPIs), and to attract stable long-term foreign capital flows.   Building on the recent in

Lessons in climate adaption from world’s largest inhabited river island

Majuli Island, perched between the Brahmaputra River to the south and east, the Subansiri River to the west, and a branch of the Brahmaputra to the north, has been severely affected by recurrent flooding and intense riverbank erosion. Despite its global importance in acquiring UNESCO tentative status for





Archives

Current Issue

Opinion

Facebook Twitter Google Plus Linkedin Subscribe Newsletter

Twitter