New Delhi, 18 April

The Election Commission of India on Thursday informed the Supreme Court that allegations of Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) showing one extra vote during a mock poll in Kerala's Kasaragod were false.

The top court was hearing a batch of pleas seeking complete cross-verification of votes cast using EVMs with Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT), an independent vote verification system which enables an elector to see whether his vote was cast correctly. "These news reports are false. We have verified the allegation from the district collector and it appears that they are false. We will submit a detailed report to the court," senior deputy election commissioner Nitesh Kumar Vyas told a bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta.

Vyas was present in the courtroom to apprise the bench about the functioning of EVMs. Earlier during the day, the top court asked senior advocate Maninder Singh, appearing for the Election Commission, to look into the issue after advocate Prashant Bhushan flagged the anomaly.

Bhushan, who is appearing for petitioner NGO 'Association for Democratic Reforms', told the court that there were reports about EVMs showing one extra vote during a mock poll exercise.