Gujarat Elections 2017 | Enough done for VVPAT awareness: Gujarat High Court

Gujarat High Court on Monday rejected public interest litigation claiming enough awareness among voters about the Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) has not been carried out by the Election Commission and the Chief Electoral Officer.

Advocate KR Koshti had moved a PIL claiming VVPAT system has been introduced for the first time by the EC and people at large are little aware about VVPAT functioning. The petitioner contended that it can affect voting and transparency.

The first division bench of Chief justice R Subhash Reddy and justice Vipul Pancholi after hearing the submission of the respondent observed that enough measures to create awareness have been carried out by the EC.

Earlier, the court had asked the Chief Electoral Officer to file a reply. Commission advocate Sahil Shah and counsel Megha Jani submitted that enough awareness campaign was run by the commission.

Even the block officers were visiting the voters for voter-list verification and also explaining about the VVPAT and electronic voting machine (EVM) system to them.

EC advocates also submitted that even documentaries have been made and are being shown to public besides submission of leaflets. Taking EC's submission, court rejected the petition.