Supreme Court will consider the petition challenging the EVMs for hearing, know the matter

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear the PIL against the use of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) for voting in elections. The Supreme Court on Wednesday gave its assent to consider listing a PIL challenging the constitutional validity of a provision of the Representation of the People Act. Under this act, EVMs were introduced instead of ballot papers for voting in the country.

Advocate ML Sharma has filed the petition

This petition has been filed by advocate ML Sharma. A bench headed by Chief Justice NV Ramana heard the arguments of advocate ML Sharma. The bench said that it will consider listing the matter.

What are the arguments of the petitioner?

The petitioner has challenged Section 61(a) of the Representation of the People Act in his petition. In this act, a provision has been made to conduct the voting through EVM instead of the ballot paper. The petitioner claims that this provision has not yet been approved by the Parliament. That is why it cannot be implemented.

Let us inform you that assembly elections are to be held in five states of the country UP, Uttarakhand, Goa, Manipur, and Punjab. Elections in UP will be held in seven phases. The first phase of assembly elections in UP will begin on February 10. Polling in Uttarakhand and Goa will be held on February 14 while in Punjab it will go to the polls on February 20. Manipur will go to the polls in two phases on February 27 and March 3. The counting of votes will take place on March 10. The results of the elections will be declared on the same day.