‘When you win, EVMs are not tampered’: Supreme Court rejects plea seeking ballot paper voting in elections

Dismissing a public interest litigation (PIL) seeking the reintroduction of ballot paper voting in elections, the Supreme court on Tuesday remarked that what happens is, when people win, the election EVMs (electronic voting machine) are not tampered.

A plea filed by K A Paul, who said he is the president of an organisation which has rescued over three lakh orphans and 40 lakh widows, had sought several directions including a directive to the Election Commission to disqualify candidates for a minimum of five years if found guilty of distributing money, liquor or other material inducement to the voters during polls.

Dismissing a PIL, a bench of Justices Vikram Nath and P B Varale said, "What happens is, when you win the election, EVMs (electronic voting machine) are not tampered. When you lose the election, EVMs are tampered (with)," remarked .

After Paul revealed he had been to over 150 countries, the bench asked him whether each of the nations had ballot paper voting or used electronic voting.

The petitioner said foreign countries had adopted ballot paper voting and India should follow suit.

"Why you don't want to be different from the rest of the world?" asked the bench.

There was corruption and this year (2024) in June, the Election Commission announced they had seized ₹9,000 crore, Paul responded.

"But how does that make your relief which you are claiming here relevant?" asked the bench, adding "if you shift back to physical ballot, will there be no corruption?".

Paul claimed CEO and co-founder of Tesla, Elon Musk, stated that EVMs could be tampered with and added TDP chief N Chandrababu Naidu, the current chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, and former state chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy had claimed EVMs could be tampered with.

"When Chandrababu Naidu lost, he said EVMs can be tampered with. Now this time, Jagan Mohan Reddy lost, he said EVMs can be tampered with," noted the bench.

When the petitioner said everybody knew money was distributed in elections, the bench remarked, "We never received any money for any elections."