Approach government: SC tells petitioner seeking India to switch to online voting

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected a public interest litigation (PIL) seeking court sanction to facilitate a switch over to e-voting in the country and instead asked the petitioner to make a representation to the government as technical glitches cut off his voice during the hearing.
“We will not go into all this,” a three-judge bench led by CJI SA Bobde said. “See, if you are having these problems while arguing before us, how can we allow e-voting?” Advocate Galib Kabir, who was appearing for the petitioner, couldn’t be heard as technical glitches ensured that he stayed on mute mode and the bench couldn’t hear him properly.

“You expect our citizens to vote online even though you see the kind of technical issues we face here? If this is the situation here, how can demand for allowing online voting to be accepted?”

The CJI directed the petitioner to withdraw his plea and instead take it to the government as a representation for it to consider. The bench asked solicitor general Tushar Mehta to treat the PIL as a representation and take a decision on it.

The pandemic and the consequential social distancing norms have prompted a fresh debate, both in India and elsewhere in other democracies, on whether remote voting was feasible in elections.