The Supreme Court will take up next week a review petition filed by 21 Opposition parties pleading that electronic voting machines be backed up by paper trail device printouts in at least half of the booths in the remaining three phases of the Lok Sabha elections.
The bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Deepak Gupta also agreed to examine the plea for an open-court hearing. Review petitions are normally heard within the judges’ chambers with no access allowed to litigants or lawyers. However, in open-court hearings, lawyers can advance their arguments.
The court did not specify any date for the hearing.
There have been widespread complaints of malfunctioning of EVMs.
The Opposition parties have urged the apex court to recall its April 8 judgment directing the Election Commission to match VVPAT paper audit slips with EVM recordings in five booths per Assembly segment, instead of the earlier practice of just one booth in every segment. The Opposition said the count needed to be increased further.