The Supreme Court on Tuesday instructed the Election Commission of India (ECI) to respond to the petition seeking the verification of burnt memory checks and Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) within fifteen days and ensure that polling data is not deleted in the process.
NGO Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), in a new plea, alleged that the ECI’s procedure for verification of EVMs was not in compliance with the April 2024 order of the Supreme Court in the EVM-VVPAT case.
In the April 26, 2024 ruling, the demand for a return to paper ballots was dismissed by the top court asserting that EVMs were secure and had helped eliminate booth capturing and fraudulent voting.
The Supreme Court permitted candidates in the second and third positions to have the burnt memory/microcontroller of 5 percent of EVMs per Assembly segment “checked and verified by a team of engineers from EVM manufacturers post the announcement of results” upon a written request and for a fee to be determined by the ECI.
On Tuesday, Advocate Prashant Bhushan, representing ADR, alleged that the ECI conducts only mock polls to validate the EVMs. “What we want is that somebody should examine the software and hardware of EVM to see whether they have any element of manipulation or not,” he said.
The bench sought clarification from the ECI regarding the procedure. The CJI asked, “What we intended was that if after the polls somebody asks, the engineer should come and certify that according to him, in their presence, there is no tampering in any of the burnt memory or the microchips stock. That’s all.”
“We didn’t want such a detailed process that you reload something… do not erase the data, do not reload the data – all you need to do is somebody should come and verify, they have to examine,” the CJI added.
Concerns were also raised regarding the cost of verification imposed by the ECI as Rs 40,000 for one EVM. In response, the CJI noted, “Reduce the cost of 40,000. That’s too high”
Furthermore, the bench assured that during the verification of the EVMs, no alteration or modification of EVM data would occur, ensuring that the counting process remains unaffected.
