The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed a batch of petitions seeking mandatory cross-verification of the votes cast in Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) with Voter-Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) slips. However, a bench headed by Justice Sanjiv Khanna asked the Election Commission of India to examine the suggestion if the VVPAT slips may have unique barcodes on them in addition to the party symbol, which in turn could be counted by an electronic machine.
The Supreme Court rejected petitions for mandatory cross-verification of EVM votes with VVPAT slips but directed the Election Commission to explore adding barcodes to VVPAT slips. Justice Khanna introduced measures for securing and verifying Symbol Loading Units and burnt memory semicontrollers post-election, with associated costs covered by requesting candidates unless tampering is detected.
Observing that the latest affidavits filed by Ramdev and Balkrishna are “nothing but a piece of paper”, a bench of Justices Hima Kohli and Ahsanuddin Amanullah took strong exception over the violation of the undertaking given to the Supreme Court in November last year.
A leading Odia daily did the utterly laughable by choosing to omit the name of the BJD in the list of recipients of the electoral bond provided in an agency copy!
Issuing a notice to the Centre and others, a Bench presided over by Chief Justice of India, DY Chandrachud, sought assistance of Additional Solicitor General (ASG), Aishwarya Bhati, in the matter.
Throwing his weight behind the hundreds of lawyers protesting against such vested interests, PM Modi pointed out how the Congress wanted a ‘committed judiciary’ five decades ago but is now resorting to ‘bullying tactics’ for selfish interests.
A Bench headed by Justice Hima Kohli noted that the ayurvedic company did not reply to the contempt notice issued to it over continued publication of misleading advertisements.
The apex court said the details to be disclosed include the unique bond numbers that would reveal the link between the buyers and the recipient political parties.
The Bench, also comprising Justice Pankaj Mithal, refused to entertain the request made by Jain’s counsel seeking a week's time to surrender.
The Act provides that the CEC and the ECs will be appointed by the President on the recommendation of a Selection Committee consisting of the PM, the Leader of the Opposition (or the largest opposition party) in the Lok Sabha, and a Union Cabinet Minister to be nominated by the PM.
Nandini Sharma prayed to set aside Section 61A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 empowering the ECI to conduct elections through EVMs.
Solicitor General (SG) Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Centre, urged the 5-judge Bench to issue notice to SBI before passing any directions.
As a token of love, the judges presented Pragya with three books on the Indian Constitution, signed by all the apex court judges.
The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed SBI’s application to extend the March 6 deadline for submitting the data to the ECI.
In its order, the Constitution Bench noted that the Electoral Bonds Scheme -- which had been held unconstitutional on February 15 -- itself mandated SBI to disclose information when demanded by a court.
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