Supreme Court directs EC not to delete EVM data: Report

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the Election Commission not to erase or reload the data in the EVMs while carrying out the verification process.

A bench of Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Dipankar Datta sought a response from the poll panel to plea by NGO, Association for Democratic Reforms for a direction to allow verification of the burnt memory and Symbol Loading Units of the EVMs.

The court asked the EC to respond to the plea claiming that the Standard Operating Procedure framed by it for verification of the EVMs was not in accordance with the previous judgment of April 26, 2024 in the EVM-VVPAT case.

Advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for ADR, said that EC's SOPs on EVM verifications are not adequate as per the decision of the court. The plea claimed the SOPs issued by the EC on June 1, 2024, and July 16, 2024, lacked adequate guidelines for checking and verification of burnt memory or microcontroller of EVMs and Symbol Loading Unit.

It claimed the checking and verification exercise as prescribed presently further involved clearing or deletion of the original data of the burnt memory or microcontroller, which would further make any true checking and verification impossible. 

The application contended the absence of complying guidelines defeated the essence of the landmark decision which intended to ensure that no malice or foul play was done during polling.

The bench told senior advocate Maninder Singh, appearing for EC counsel, that the directions in the judgment was not to delete or reload the polling data in the EVMs. The court said its judgment only intended for the EVM to be verified and checked by an engineer from the manufacturing company after the polling was conducted. 

"If after the polls somebody asks, the engineer should come and certify that according to him in their presence, there is no tampering in any of the burnt memory or the micro-chips stock. That's all. Why do you erase the data," the bench asked the counsel.

The court explained it did not want such a detailed process that it reloaded something. "Do not erase the data, do not reload the data- all you need to do is somebody should come and verify, they have to examine," the bench said.

The court asked the EC to file a short affidavit explaining the standard operating procedure adopted for verification of the EVMs. It also recorded a statement by the EC that no modification or correction of EVM data would be done. 

Senior advocate Devadatt Kamat appearing for Sarva Mitter submitted that instead of carrying out proper verification of the EVMs on which the polling is done, only a mock poll was conducted which costs around Rs 40,000, while the total machine doesn't cost more than Rs 30,000.

The court scheduled the matter in the week commencing on March 3, 2025.

The bench declined to consider a similar plea by former Haryana Minister Karan Singh Dalal and another, seeking verification of the EVMs used in the Haryana Assembly Elections, since an earlier petition by them on the same issue was withdrawn without obtaining liberty to file a fresh petition.