Mansoor Ali’s plea on EVMs dismissed

A division bench comprising Justice S Manikumar and Justice Subramonium Prasad sought to know on what right the petitioner seeks such a direction and that through a PIL.

To this, the actor who appeared a party-in-person contended that he is a citizen and that he had contested elections almost four times. He said with his representation to the Election Commission failing to evoke any response, the only choice left to him as a public is to approach the court to ensure that the EVMs, which can be easily tampered with should be replaced by ballot boxes. However, the bench expressing its disinclination to admit the plea dismissed it.

The actor in his plea had sought a direction to the state election commission to permit him to test EVMs for seven days with the aid of experts/technically skilled people in the field, under the supervision of a retired Supreme Court or High Court judge to demonstrate and prove that tampering is taking place in the voting process using EVM.

He further noted that when the ballot system was in existence, there were no high-level complaints, apart from counting mistakes. But, after introduction of EVMs, the election process had moved away from the public and has reached the influential political parties.