‘Don’t erase and reload data,’ Supreme Court to Election Commission on EVM verification plea

The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the Election Commission of India (ECI) to file its response within two weeks on a plea seeking directions to the poll panel to include the checking and verification of burnt memory of EVMs in their Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs).

The top court was hearing a petition by the election watchdog, Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR), Haryana and a group of Congress leaders. A bench of Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Dipankar Datta heard the matter on February 11.

“We will keep this after 15 days. Please file your response by then. Please do not erase the data and reload the data. Let someone just examine,” Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna told the poll panel, according to legal news website Bar and Bench. The next hearing will be held in the week starting March 3.

The poll panel has to provide information to the court about the process of burning EVM memory and microcontroller after elections. The petitions have sought that the court directs the panel to formulate policy for checking original burnt memory/microcontroller of EVM components.

"If the losing candidate wants clarification, the engineer can give clarification that there has been no tampering," the CJI added.

SOPs lack adequate guidelines: Petition

The main contention of ADR in the plea, according to the legal news website LiveLaw, is that the Administrative and Technical SOPs issued by the ECI on June 1, 2024, and July 16, 2024, lack adequate guidelines for checking and verification of (1) burnt memory or microcontroller of EVMs and (2) Symbol Loading Unit (SLU)."

During the hearing on Tuesday, Advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for the ADR, said, “We are seeking that the procedure which ECI needs to adopt as per Supreme Court judgment is in consonance with their standard operating protocol. What we want is that somebody should examine the software and the hardware of the EVMs in order to see if the software and hardware has any element of manipulation or not.”