The Gujarat High Court on Monday issued notices to the Election Commission (EC) on a petition moved by the state unit of the Congress against using defective EVMs and VVPATs.
A division bench comprising Justices Akil Kureshi and A K Kogje issued notices to the commission, the state chief electoral officer and the Centre through the Ministry of Law and Justice.
The Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee, in its petition, said that around 7% of the total 70,182 Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) units had failed First Level Checks (FLCs) and were found to be defective, along with defective EVMs and control units.
The commission found 3,550 VVPATs to be defective in its FLCs recently. The Congress wanted these units to be sealed and not used at any of the 50,000 polling booths in the state. The EC has already announced that it is going to use VVPATs in all the booths in the 182 Assembly segments.
The Congress prayed that the court, directly or through EC, set up an expert panel to look into the defective EVMs to avoid any foul play. It even sought the use of ballot papers to avoid tampering.
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