SC to consider plea against use of symbols in EVMs

The petitioner contended that the party symbol was the root cause of corruption, and criminalisation

The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to consider a plea by BJP leader and lawyer, Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay, for directions to the Election Commission to use name, age, qualification and photograph of contesting candidates on EVM in place of political party symbol.

A bench of Chief Justice S A Bobde and Justices A S Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian, however, refused for now to issue notice to the Union government and the Election Commission on his petition.

The court asked the petitioner to serve a copy of his petition on Attorney General K K Venugopal, a copy of his petition. It posted the matter for consideration after one week.

The petition by Upadhyay contended that the party symbol was the root cause of corruption and criminalisation. He sought appropriate orders and or directions to use name, age, qualification and photograph of contesting candidates on Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) instead of political party symbol.

Senior advocate, Vikas Singh, appearing for Upadhyay, told the court that he had checked and found that in Brazil, one just got numbers to contest and there was no symbol.

The bench, however, asked Singh, how a symbol can prejudice the electronic voting process in any way.

To this, Singh said that the intrinsic value of the candidates can be taken and measured by the voters if details other than party symbols can be taken into consideration.

The CJI, however, said that the court would not issue a notice at this stage.

"You serve a copy on the Attorney General and then we will see. No notice now," the CJI Bobde told Singh.

The counsel also said that he had sent a letter to the Election Commission of India (ECI) and other authorities, but they didn't give any response in the matter.