‘Don’t erase data’: Supreme Court to Election Commission in EVM verification plea

The Supreme Court, successful its April 26, 2024 order, allowed candidates astatine No. 2 and No. 3 positions the enactment to get the burnt memory/microcontroller of 5 per cent of EVMs per Assembly conception “checked and verified by a squad of engineers from EVM manufacturers station the announcement of results” connected a written petition for a outgo to beryllium notified by the ECI.

On Tuesday, advocator Prashant Bhushan, appearing for ADR, said the canvass assemblage lone does mock polls for verification of the EVMs. “What we privation is idiosyncratic to analyse the bundle and hardware of EVM to spot whether they person immoderate constituent of manipulations oregon not,” helium submitted.

Senior advocator Devadat Kamat, appearing for different petitioner, too, echoed the interest and said what was done was lone a mock poll, and the complaint is Rs 40,000. Concerns were besides expressed astir the erstwhile information being deleted during reloading.

CJI Khanna clarified that the tribunal said verification tin hap if anyone has doubts. Referring to the April 2024 judgment, the CJI said the intent down the bid was that determination should beryllium nary disturbance successful the counting and that an technologist from the EVM shaper should analyse the instrumentality and not erase oregon reload the polling information successful the machines.

“What we intended was that, if aft the polls idiosyncratic asks, the technologist should travel and certify that according to him successful their presence, determination is nary tampering successful immoderate of the burnt representation oregon the micro-chips stock. That’s all,” the CJI said, and asked elder advocator Maninder Singh appearing for the ECI, “why bash you erase the data?”

The CJI added, “We didn’t privation specified a elaborate process that you reload something…. bash not erase the data, bash not reload the data- each you request to bash is idiosyncratic should travel and verify, they person to examine.”

The seat besides referred to the submissions astir the outgo of verification and told Singh, “Reduce the outgo of 40,000; that’s excessively high.”

Fixing the substance for proceeding adjacent connected March 3, the seat asked Singh to record a abbreviated affidavit explaining the process followed for verification of EVM. It besides recorded his connection that determination won’t beryllium “any modification/correction of the data” successful the meantime.