Give details of EVM requirement for local body polls:HC to SEC

Stating that it is keen to ensure free and fair civic polls in Tamil Nadu, Madras High Court today directed State Election Commission to give it details of the requirement of Electronic Voting Machines for local body polls in the state, except in panchayats, by tomorrow.
A division bench, comprising Justices Huluvadi G Ramesh and K Ravichandrabaabu, said the Commission must give details of reserved segments and proposed rotation of reserved segments, mandatory once in 10 years, by Friday afternoon.
"We are keen to ensure free and fair civic polls in Tamil Nadu," the judges said.
The bench stated this when a batch of petitions by DMK seeking four reliefs - reservation/rotation of reserved constituencies, use of EVMs in all civic segments, deployment of central government or public sector staff for poll duty and hosting candidate information on the official website of State Election Commission - came up for hearing.

Advocate General of Tamil Nadu R Muthukumaraswamy said use of EVMs could not be insisted on unless rules provided for it and there was no rule requiring deployment of EVMs in panchayats.
Stating that it is a must to conduct local body polls by October 24, 2016, he said under no circumstances could the elections be postponed as per the Panchayat Raj Act.

He said the term of the present local bodies cannot be extended beyond October 24 and a poll notification for them would have to be issued 30 days before that date.
The AG referred to delimitation of civic bodies, saying the Supreme Court had held it cannot be called into question.

Earlier, DMK's senior counsel R Shanmugasundaram argued that the number of EVMs required for Tamil Nadu would not be in the region of four to five lakh, as the state government had decided not to hold direct elections to civic chief posts.
He said if representation is made to Election Commission, EVMs lying idle in other states would be used in Tamil Nadu.
Another senior counsel N R Elango expressed fear that SEC might not plan on a fair poll, evident from the fact that its counter affidavit spoke of parties and their past stands.
B Kumar, SEC's senior counsel, said 66,500 EVMs are ready and added it will be a logistical nightmare to bring EVMs from other states to Tamil Nadu. Voters in urban local bodies need cast only one vote and those in rural local bodies, four, needing four times the number of EVMs planned to be put in use as of now, he said.

Kumar, however, said Kanyakumari district had been chosen for full EVM use on an experimental basis
Justice Ramesh asked SEC to demonstrate its fairness and said it should do whatever it can - such as using EVMs and reserving/rotating reserved seats - to ensure fair polling.
Explaining the positives of using EVMs, he said they would help expedite counting and rule out manual/human errors.
"You are an independent agency.. Do what best you can to provide a free and fair election," he said.