6.6. The VVPAT Ruling

Supreme Court (SC), in the case of Subramanian Swamy vs. Election Commission of India (ECI),2013 held that VVPAT (Vote Verifiable Paper Audit Trial) is “indispensable for free and fair elections”. In accordance to that, the Supreme Court directed the ECI to equip Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) with VVPAT systems to “ensure accuracy of the VVPAT system”. The Court directed the government to provide the key financial assistance to the ECI to cause VVPAT systems to be deployed along with EVMs.

Reiterating the stand of the Delhi High Court in an earlier judgment, the Apex Court maintained that costs and finances cannot and should not be a deterrent to the conduct of free and fair elections. Although this ruling boosts accountable voting in India, there remain a few concerns. While this was an exclusive prerogative of the Executive to decide the manner in which fair and efficient elections can be held, but in this case the court not only decided the mechanism but also asked the government to allocate funds.

More recently, the Supreme Court increased voter verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) verification to five random Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) in each Assembly segment/constituency “to ensure the greatest degree of accuracy, satisfaction in election process.". Earlier, under the ECI guidelines, only the VVPAT slips from one EVM in every Assembly segment/constituency was subjected to physical verification.

A report by the Indian Statistical Institute, said that a sample verification of 479 EVMs

and VVPATs out of a total 10.35 lakh machine would lift public confidence to 99.9936%. The increase to 5 EVMS would result in 8.6 times the sample size recommended in the Indian Statistical Institute report.