A petition was filed in the Supreme Court on Wednesday seeking a direction to the Election Commission (EC) to investigate the 17th Lok Sabha election results for discrepancies.
The petition filed by Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and Common Cause submitted that they are not challenging the final result of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
"However, the issues and irregularities that arose in the conduct of the election are being cited as arguments for seeking the prayers sought in the petition for effectuating free and fair elections, survival of democracy and for the enforcement of fundamental rights," the petition stated.
The BJP-led NDA government had returned to a thumping majority in the elections.
The petitioner also sought a direction to the poll body to conduct actual and accurate reconciliation of data before declaring any election result.
"That in order to uphold and preserve the sanctity of elections, it is undeniably imperative that election results are accurate. The entire electoral process is damaged if elections are not credible even in the absence of a demonstrable scam," plea said.
The petition was filed to ensure that democratic process is not subverted by electoral irregularities, it stated.
The petition cited a letter written by former IAS officer Kannan Gopinath to the Chief Election Commissioner regarding serious loopholes and vulnerabilities in the use of VVPAT machines which made EVMs susceptible to potential hacking.
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