SC reserves order on VVPAT cross-verification petitions
The Supreme Court, on Wednesday, reserved its judgement in the ongoing EVM-VVPAT case after it received answers from the Election Commission of India (ECI) to technical queries it had asked for earlier in the day.
While hearing pleas seeking the complete verification of votes cast using Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) with Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT), the top Court said, “We don’t control the elections, the poll body has cleared doubts”.
“We cannot control the elections, we cannot control the functioning of another constitutional authority,” the Supreme Court said. “The ECI has cleared doubts. We cannot change your thought process. We cannot issue a mandamus on the basis of suspicion.”
Earlier in the day, the top Court raised several “technical questions” and directed the Election Commission to respond to queries concerning the cross-verification of votes cast in electronic voting machines (EVMs) with Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) by 2 pm.
In reply to SC’s question on if the microcontroller is installed in the control unit or the VVPAT in the EVMs, the ECI replied that “All three units, ballot units, VVPAT and the chip…have their own micro controllers and these micro controllers are housed in a secured unauthorised access detection module and cannot be accessed.”