The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the Election Commission during a hearing on a petition that what is the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) after the voting is over? The petition was filed by a group of Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), Haryana and Congress leaders.
It was demanded in this petition that data should not be removed from EVM even after the counting of votes was over. The bench headed by the Chief Justice (CJI Sanjeev Khanna) directed the Election Commission not to remove any data from EVMs nor load any new data.
Supreme Court questions from Election Commission
During the hearing, CJI Sanjeev Khanna asked the Election Commission to give information about EVM memory and microcontroller’s burning process. He clearly asked why the data of EVM is deleted after the election?
He said-
“If the losing candidate wants clarification, engineers should clarify that there is no tampering in the EVM.”
What was revealed about EVM data?
The Supreme Court was told that BEL (Bharat Electronics Limited) engineers loaded dummy symbols and data in EVM and deleted the original data.
After this revelation, CJI Khanna asked the Election Commission why EVM’s original data was removed and ordered not to delete EVM data in future.
What has been demanded in the petition?
A clear policy should be made to examine the burn memory and microcontroller of EVM.
Ensure authenticity from engineers should be ensured to verify the original burns of EVM.
It should be proved that there is no tampering in voting machines.
When will the next hearing be held?
The next hearing of the case will be held on 17 March 2025. The Supreme Court has directed the Election Commission to give detailed information and reply on the issue.
This matter is being considered very important regarding the safety and transparency of EVM, as it has associated the public’s confidence in the democratic electoral process of the country.
