The Supreme Court on Wednesday reserved its verdict on petitions seeking 100 percent matching of all votes casted through Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) with the ‘Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail’ (VVPAT).
The court said that it is not the controlling authority for elections and a constitutional authority cannot direct the functioning of the Election Commission. The bench of Justice Sanjeev Khanna and Justice Dipankar Dutta said that we cannot take action on the basis of mere suspicion.
The bench had asked an Election Commission official five questions regarding the functioning of the EVMs, which included the question whether the ‘microcontroller’ installed in the EVMs can be reprogrammed or not?
Senior Deputy Election Commissioner Nitish Kumar Vyas had earlier given a presentation in the court about the working of EVMs. The bench had called him to answer questions at two o’clock in the day.
The bench had said that it needed clarification on certain aspects as there was some confusion regarding the answers given by the Commission on ‘Frequently Asked Questions’ (FAQs) regarding EVMs.
The bench said, ‘We have some doubts and need clarification and hence we have listed the matter for directions. We do not want to be factually wrong in our conclusions, but want to be absolutely sure.
Even before this, amid apprehensions about EVMs, petitions have sought directions to verify every vote cast on EVMs with VVPAT slips. Currently this cross-verification is done for five randomly selected EVMs in each assembly constituency.
In the last hearing, the petitioners had said that many European countries have also returned to ballot paper voting after using EVMs. On this, the bench of Justice Sanjeev Khanna and Justice Dipankar Dutta said that conducting elections in the country is a big challenge and no European country can do it.
There should be purity in the electoral process
In the last hearing, the Supreme Court had told the Election Commission that there should be purity in the electoral process. The court had asked the Election Commission to explain in detail the steps taken to ensure free and fair elections. The court had said that this is an election process. There should be purity in it.
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