The Supreme Court on Tuesday declined urgent hearing of a PIL which sought verification of the VVPAT (voter verified paper audit trail) before counting begins on March 10 in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Manipur and Goa instead of the usual practice of undertaking the exercise after the end of counting.

A bench headed by Chief Justice of India N.V. Ramana initially agreed to list the matter for hearing on Wednesday but towards noon changed its view after senior advocate Maninder Singh, appearing for Election Commission of India, opposed the plea of the petitioner Rakesh Kumar on the ground that the poll panel was strictly following the guidelines issued by the Supreme Court in 2019 on VVPAT compliance.

“We are not interfering. Let the counting go on as per established practice, procedure and law. They are following the judgment of this court. They (EC) had made statement in this regard,” the bench, also comprising Justice A.S. Bopanna and Justice Hima Kohli, said.

Earlier in the day, the bench had agreed to consider the plea of senior advocate Meenakshi Arora, appearing for the petitioner, for urgent listing. The CJI initially questioned the senior counsel on the logic of approaching the court when counting of votes is just two days away.

“…You are now coming at the last moment. In the last minute if you are asking us to take it up then we do not have time. You know the counting is on day after tomorrow. You should have come early. You should have mentioned it at least yesterday. You are mentioning now?

“Assuming for a minute, we hear it tomorrow, please tell us whether it is possible to send to all the states a particular direction to follow?” Justice Ramana asked Arora.

The counsel however, pleaded that the poll panel may be asked to respond to the plea on Wednesday as, according to her, conducting VVPAT verification after the counting process would not serve the intended purpose.

“At present verification of VVPAT is after counting is over and by that time all election agents have left the counting centres. There is no transparency. If verification is done after counting is over, then there is no use. So we are requesting that verification should be done at the beginning when there are agents, parties and candidates present at the counting centres,” Arora stated.

“Let us see what can be done,” the bench said while initially hinting at listing the matter on Wednesday.

However, following the EC’s submission that the panel was strictly following the 2019 guidelines and there was no need to modify the order at the last moment, the bench agreed that there would be no urgent hearing.

In 2019, the apex court had directed that VVPAT verification should be done on a random basis in at least five of the polling stations of each Assembly constituency which had gone to the polls to avoid any malpractices/mistakes in the counting process.

In the present PIL the petitioner has pleaded that the VVPAT should be done at the commencement of the counting process and not after the conclusion. Further it was his plea that the random verification should be done in at least 25 polling booths of each assembly segment instead of five as ordered by the Apex court in 2019 to ensure total transparency in the counting of votes.