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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."
Further, answering the Court's query on if the microcontroller installed in the EVMs is 'one-time programmable', the poll body answered that all microcontrollers are one-time programmable. "It is burned when inserted so it can never be changed."
The apex court also asked how many symbol loading units are available with the Election Commission. The Election Commission, in reply, said that there are two manufacturers for symbol loading: Electronic Corporation Of India and Bharat Electronics.
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To clarify whether the limitation period for filing election petitions is 30 days or 45 days, the EC informed that all machines are stored in strong rooms for 45 days. In case an election petition is filed, that room is kept locked and sealed. If a petition is not filed, it is opened.
In the last reply to the SC's question of whether only the Control Unit is sealed or the VVPAT is kept separately, the Commission replied that the control unit is sealed because it stores the polling data. "During commissioning all three units are also sealed with a pink seal. VVPAT is also sealed and signature is taken from all polling agents," it said.
Earlier on April 16, the SC dismissed the petitioners' request to revert back to paper ballots and observed that, considering the size of India's population and other factors, it would not be practical for the country to return to paper ballots.
Justice Sanjiv Khanna remarked, "We are in our 60s. We all know what happened when there were ballot papers, you may have, but we have not forgotten."
