No 100 per cent verification of VVPAT receipts, rules SC
The Supreme Court of India has rejected all the pleas for paper ballot voting, 100% EVM-VVPAT verification and physical deposit of VVPAT slips.
A two-judge bench with Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta announced the verdict at 10:30 AM today.
The court has released two direction in the case. Justice Khanna said, “One direction is after the completion of symbol loading process, the Symbol Loading Unit should be sealed. The SLU should be stored at least for a period of 45 days,” live law reported.
In the second direction, the court ordered that the burnt memory in the microcontroller EVM should be checked by a team of engineers after the declaration of results on a request by candidates in serial number 2 and 3.
“The expenses for the verification (of the program) to be borne by the candidates making the request, in case the EVM is found to be tampered, the expenses will be refunded,” Justice Khanna said.
The SC had earlier reserved its judgement on the matter on April 24 requesting clarification from the Election Commission in the 100 percent verification.
During the hearing, the bench asked specific technical concerns about EVMs, specifically the reprogrammability of their microcontrollers. In response, the Election Commission of India emphasised that the microcontrollers in EVMs are one-time programmable and cannot be changed after manufacture.