The Supreme Court of India Today (Feb 11) ordered that no data should be deleted or reloaded on Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) after elections. This came in response to a petition by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), urging that EVM data must be preserved. A bench led by Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna has asked the Election Commission to explain the process of erasing EVM memory and microcontrollers. “Please do not erase the data and reload the data. Let someone just examine,” the court told the Election Commission.
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NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court of India today asked about the proper process that should be followed for handling Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) after elections are completed.
This question came up in response to a petition that requested that the data stored in these machines should not be erased, even after the counting of votes is finished.
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Right now, the Supreme Court has ordered that no data should be deleted from the EVMs, and no new data should be loaded onto them.
A special bench led by Chief Justice of India, Sanjiv Khanna, issued this directive.
The court has also asked the Election Commission of India (ECI) to provide clear details about the procedure followed to erase the memory and microcontroller of the EVMs after elections.
“Please do not erase the data and reload the data. Let someone just examine,”
-the Supreme Court told the Election Commission.
“This is not adversarial,”
-said the Chief Justice.
“If the losing candidate wants clarification, the engineer can give clarification that there has been no tampering,”
-he added.
The court’s comments came while it was hearing a petition by the Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR), Haryana, and a group of Congress leaders.
The petitions had sought that the court directs the Commission to formulate policy for checking original burnt memory/microcontroller of EVM components.
The petition regarding this matter was filed by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR). The case was heard today by a bench consisting of CJI Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Dipankar Datta.
During the hearing, 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.”
The petition has also demanded that the burnt memory and microcontroller of EVM be verified by the engineer to prove that EVM has not been tampered with.
The next hearing will be held in the week starting March 3.
CASE TITLE:
ASSOCIATION FOR DEMOCRATIC REFORMS Versus ELECTION COMMISSION OF INDIA AND ANR.| MA 40/2025 in W.P.(C) No. 434/2023 And Connected Matters.
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