The Supreme Court will next week take up a batch of PILs seeking a direction to the Election Commission of India to ensure mandatory cross-verification of the votes cast in EVMs with the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT).

The bench headed by Justice Sanjiv Khanna on Wednesday gave the assurance after advocates Kapil Sibal, Prashant Bhushan and Gopal Sankaranarayanan sought an urgent hearing of the petitions in view of the impending general election.

The counsels told the bench, also comprising Justices M.M. Sundresh and Bela M. Trivedi, that if the matter is not heard it will become “infructuous” as the first phase of the elections will begin on April 19.

“Mr Bhushan, after all, how much time this matter will take? You can make submissions in two hours and we will finish the matter. Ok. Next week,” Justice Khanna said.

On April 1, another bench headed by Justice B.R. Gavai had sought the response of the Centre and the Election Commission on a PIL seeking the complete count of VVPAT slips in elections against the current practice of verification of only five randomly selected EVMs.

The bench had issued the notice on a petition filed by lawyer and activist Arun Kumar Agrawal following apprehensions about the manipulation of EVMs.