Achi news desk-
Supreme Court
– Photo: ANI
expansion
The Supreme Court will give its verdict on Friday, i.e. today, on petitions seeking full verification of votes cast using EVMs with Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail or VVPAT. Earlier, after two days of continuous discussion, the committee reserved its decision on the petitions on April 18. However, on Wednesday the Supreme Court listed the issue again. Then the Supreme Court asked for clarification from the Election Commission about several things. The court then reserved its decision.
Having reserved the decision, the bench of Justices Sanjeev Khanna and Dipankar Dutta can deliver its verdict today. While reserving the verdict on Wednesday, the Supreme Court commented that it cannot control the elections, nor act as a control authority of a constitutional body. There are provisions in the law that allow the perpetrator to face the consequences. The court cannot grant mandamus merely on the basis of suspicion.
The court said it could not change the thought process of those who doubt the benefits of voting machines and advocate a return to the ballot box. Apart from this, while reserving the decision on Wednesday, the bench called Deputy Election Commissioner Nitish Vyas to the court and sought clarification on five issues. The court said, we have seen the frequently asked questions (FAQs) about EVMs. We want clarification on three or four things. We do not want to make a factual mistake but want to be doubly sure of our decision and therefore request this clarification. The five questions to which the bench sought answers included whether the microcontrollers installed in EVMs are reprogrammable.
In this regard, Vyas told the court that microcontrollers are installed in all the three units of EVM, voting, control and VVPAT. It is impossible to reach them physically. They can only be programmed once. He said EVM machines are usually kept safe for 45 days. In the case of submitting an election petition, the deadline is extended. Weiss had earlier also informed the court about the operation of EVM.
