Judge compares population of home state to Germany’s in VVPAT, EVM case before Supreme Court.

Justice Dipankar Datta stated that the population of his home state, West Bengal, exceeds that of Germany. He emphasized the need to trust a reliable source and cautioned against attempting to undermine the system.

Justice Datta discouraged the use of European examples, asserting that they are not applicable in the current context. During the proceedings, Advocate Prashant Bhushan, representing the Association for Democratic Reforms, cited Germany’s case to support the argument for counting VVPAT paper slips and matching them with EVM results.

In response to Justice Datta’s inquiry about Germany’s population, Bhushan estimated it to be approximately 5 crores, while India has 50-60 crore voters. Justice Sanjiv Khanna intervened, highlighting India’s 97 registered voters and pointing out the limitations of the ballot voting method.

He also emphasized the negative implications of past experiences with ballot papers. The Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) allows voters to verify that their vote was correctly cast and went to their chosen candidate.

The VVPAT generates a paper slip kept in a sealed cover, which can be accessed in the event of a dispute. Amid the opposition’s concerns regarding the EVM system, the petitions, filed by the Association for Democratic Reforms and activist Arun Kumar Agarwal, call for the cross-verification of each vote.

Mr. Agarwal’s petition seeks the counting of all VVPAT slips, while ADR’s petition requests the court to direct the Election Commission and the Centre to ensure that voters can verify through VVPATs that their votes have been accurately recorded. The petition emphasizes the importance of voters being able to verify that their votes have been “recorded as cast”, indicating that the VVPAT slip is displayed for approximately seven seconds after pressing the EVM button through a transparent window.