Letter to BS: Singhvi, Sibal should have approached EC before Supreme Court

This is with reference to “VVPAT case: SC rejects plea of Opposition leaders” (May 8). The summary rejection of the VVPAT review plea of 21 Opposition parties, led by Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Nadu (pictured), must have come as a bolt from the blue for all of them. The members also included the National Conferences’s Farooq Abdullah and Communist Party of India MP D Raja. 
 

It may be pertinent to observe that this group was over-ambitiously looking to persuade the apex court to increase the EVM's VVPAT slips count to 50 per cent in each assembly segment but the Supreme Court did not consider it worthy and simply refused to “review” its order of April 8. Curiously enough, the Court also dismissed the plea of the senior advocates A M Singhvi and Kapil Sibal (both belonging to the Congress party) which later sought the hike in the said verification of slips to the extent of 25 per cent (as a confidence building measure), much to their discomfiture.
 

Interestingly, they have now petitioned the EC for the same 50 per cent VVPAT verification of EVMs, as the last resort. Should they not have first approached the EC before approaching the top court? While the entire nation may be keen on hearing its final decision, let us not hope against hopes, more so when the SC has already rejected a similar plea. 
 

Anjana Gupta  New Delhi

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