New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday rejected pleas seeking complete cross-verification of votes cast using Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) with Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT).

A bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta delivered two concurring verdicts in the matter. Pronouncing the judgement, Justice Khanna said the court has rejected all the petitions, including those seeking resorting back to ballot papers in elections.

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The order came on the day the coutry went to vote in the second phase of the general elections. "Blindly discussing any aspect of the system can lead to unwarranted scepticism and impede progress," Justice Dipankar Datta said, after the two judge-bench delivered a unanimous verdict. "Instead, a critical yet constructive approach guided by evidence and reason should be followed to make room for meaningful improvements and to ensure the system's credibility and effectiveness."

India has been using Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) since 2000 to record votes.

Critics and watchdogs, including some political parties, want verification to be done at more booths to increase transparency. The Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), a non-government civil society group, petitioned the top court seeking verification of all EVM votes with VVPAT slips.
(With PTI & Reuters inputs)

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