SC to hear Congress leader's plea on VVPATs next week
New Delhi, Aug 10 : The Supreme Court will hear next week a plea by Congress leader Kamal Nath for directions to the Election Commission to carry out verification of VVPAT units in at least 10 per cent randomly selected booths in each constituency of Madhya Pradesh ahead of Assembly polls.
A bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra agreed to hear the matter as the petitioner's lawyer mentioned the matter for early hearing.
Kamal Nath, President of Madhya Pradesh Congress Committee, has also sought directions to the Election Commission to expeditiously decide all complaints and publish the voters lists thereof.
He has also sought prohibiting of the Election Commission from deleting the names of voters from lists without intimation to the political parties.
The elections to the 230-member Madhya Pradesh Assembly are scheduled in November-December and are likely to coincide with those in Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Mizoram.
The senior Congress leader also sought a slew of directions, apart from random VVPAT checks, mock polls and recounting, collection of paper trails and storage, unique identification numbers on VVPATs and paper trail collection boxes, and transportation of EVMs and VVPATs before and after polls.
Referring to the commission's press note that of the total 16.15 lakh Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPATs) units, only 5.88 lakhs have been delivered and there was a delay in their manufacture and procurement, Kamal Nath expressed apprehension that such machines used in Utter Pradesh and Gujarat Assembly elections are likely to be used in Madhya Pradesh as well.
The petitioner urged for court directions to the Election Commission not to post any officials facing disciplinary proceedings or inquiries, or are on contract basis or on extension after retirement in key posts in different districts of Madhya Pradesh.
Seeking safe and secure transportation of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) and VVPATs during the Assembly elections, the former Union Minister sought direction to the poll panel to conduct the Assembly elections with the latest tamper-proof EVMs and VVPATs.
The Congress leader sought directions to increase the duration of VVPAT display of exercised votes from present seven seconds to 15 seconds.
He sought a ten-fold increase in the number of VVPATs to be used in mock polls to 50 per cent of the total units.
This is the second time that the Congress had moved the top court before Assembly elections.
The Supreme Court had on December 14 last year declined to entertain Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee plea for directions to the Election Commission to count votes through paper trail attached to the EVMs in 20 per cent of polling booths in Gujarat, where Assembly elections were held in November 2017.
Declining to entertain the plea, the top court had then said: "We can't substitute the Election Commission decision unless you demonstrate it is either arbitrary or not in accordance with law."
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
