The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to hear a PIL which sought 100 per cent matching of VVPAT slips with EVMs before counting of votes.
The apex court refused to entertain the PIL filed by Chennai-based Tech4all two days ahead of the counting of votes for the Lok Sabha polls on May 23.
A vacation bench of the SC headed by Justice Arun Mishra refused to hear the PIL on the ground that the Chief Justice had already dismissed the plea of 21 opposition parties to review the top court’s earlier decision to match the VVPAT from one to five.
It may be mentioned that a bench of the apex court headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi had on May 7 rejected the demand of the opposition parties to increase the counting of VVPAT machines from five to 25 pc in the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections.
Although the opposition parties demanded for 50 pc matching of the VVPATs with EVMs before the counting of votes in one to five VVPAT in each constituency, the Election Commission of India argued that the poll results will be delayed by five days if 50 pc of total VVPATs are counted.
“What is this PIL? There is no merit in this. This seems to be nuisance kind of petition and we dismiss such petitions,” said Justice Arun Mishra and dismissed the petition filed by one Chennai-based Tech4all.