The Supreme Court was hearing a batch of petitions seeking 100 per cent cross-verification of vote count in EVMs with VVPAT paper slips.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday posed a set of queries to the Election Commission of India (ECI) on the functioning of electronic voting machines (EVMs) and sought the presence of an ECI official in the court at 2 pm to answer them.
The Supreme court was hearing a batch of petitions seeking 100 per cent cross-verification of vote count in EVMs with voter verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) paper slips. It reserved its verdict on the matter on April 18, a day before the first phase of the Lok Sabha elections 2024.
Two days before the second phase of voting on April 26, a bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta opposed suggestions about revealing the source code of the EVMs. “It should not be disclosed. It will be misused,” said the bench. The source code refers to a set of instructions coded into the machine that tells it how to function.
The court recalled that the EVM comprises three parts — the ballot unit, control unit, and VVPAT and said it wanted to know whether the control unit has a microcontroller.
“One is that (whether) the microcontroller is installed in the controlling unit or in the VVPAT. Call your officer who was present on that day at 2 o’clock”, said Justice Khanna.
He added, “We were under the impression that the microcontroller with the memory, which is burnt with the firmware, is installed in the control unit. But one of the questions in the frequently asked questions indicates that this microcontroller with memory is installed in the VVPAT. What we were told is that VVPAT has a flash memory.”
Justice Khanna inquired about the microcontroller and whether it was one-time programmable as there are various types of microcontrollers available.
“Third thing is you refer to the symbol loading units. How many of them are available with you? That we want to know.”
The court said it also had some queries on the limitation period for filing election petitions and the corresponding time period for preserving VVPAT slips.
“The fourth thing is that it was said that the limitation period for filing of the election petition is 30 days storage, and therefore the storage (of VVPAT slips) is for 45 days. As per section 81 of The Representation of People Act, 1981, the limitation period it is 45 days. So accordingly, the corresponding period for which you will have to retain the VVPAT slips, will have to be increased,” said the bench.
The bench also sought to know if the control unit, as well as the VVPAT, are sealed and stored.
“When you talk about the ceiling and securing of the EVMs, we take it that both the control unit and VVPAT would have the seal and not restricted to only the control unit… We want clarification on that”.
Senior advocate Maninder Singh, appearing for the ECI, assured the court that the ECI official would be present at 2 pm to answer all queries.
In the last hearing on April 18, the Election Commission of India answered the queries on EVMs and VVPATs, delving into their functioning. The poll panel informed the court that the manufacturer of the EVMs does not know which button is going to be allotted to which political party or which machine is going to be allotted to which state or constituency.
On April 16, the bench dismissed the petitioner’s isea of returning to ballot papers, reminding that it had not forgotten what used to happen when ballot papers were used to cast votes.
The VVPAT machine is attached to the ballot unit of the EVM and provides visual verification for a voter’s vote by printing a slip of paper with the voter’s choice on it. This is later used to verify votes cast in five randomly selected polling booths. The Opposition has been demanding that 100 per cent of VVPAT slips be cross-checked with the EVM votes.
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CREDIT: – THE INDIAN EXPRESS
