PILs demanding paper trail device with EVMs dismissed

MUMBAI: The Mumbai High Court has dismissed two PILs seeing a direction to the Government to procure Voter Verification Paper Audit Trial devices to be attached to EVMs during State Assembly elections in all the 288 seats in Maharashtra.

The PILs were dismissed on September 30 by a bench headed by Chief Justice Mohit Shah which accepted the Government's statement that such devices would be used all over the country in a phased manner.

According to the PILs, EVM machines did not meet all the international standards requirements and were open to hacking. Hence, VVPAT device would provide an opportunity to the voter to verify the vote caste by him.

The voter verification paper trail device is attached to EVM and automatically generates the slip that has the name of the candidate and the symbol in favour of whom the voter has caste his vote, said the PILs.