New Delhi:The Supreme Court on Thursday reserved its verdict on petitions seeking cross-verification of votes cast on Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) with paper slips generated through the VVPAT system
The apex court said it is important to allay everybody's apprehensions in connection with the electoral process and there has to be sanctity while asking the Election Commission of India to explain in detail the steps followed to ensure free and fair elections.
A bench comprising justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta told senior advocate Maninder Singh, representing the ECI, to please explain to the court the entire process: how machines are calibrated, what stage candidates can examine if required, and the guarantee there can be no possibility of tampering, changes in chips, retrieval of data, etc.,
Singh submitted before the bench that all have been dealt with earlier and also examined by this court, and orders have been passed. Justice Datta said, “What we want is that either you or the deputy commissioner, whoever is present, allay the apprehensions of everyone (regarding the electoral process)…it is an electoral process, there has to be some sanctity. Let nobody have any apprehension that something which is not expected is being done…”, said Justice Datta.
Advocate Prashant Bhushan, representing the Association for Democratic Reforms, submitted before the bench, referring to a news article, that there was a mock poll in Kasaragod, Kerala and that some of the EVMs and VVPATs were recording one extra vote for BJP. The bench asked the ECI counsel and the officer to look into it.
After lunch, the ECI informed the apex court that the Kasaragod incident, mentioned by Bhushan referring to a news article, is not correct.
The court told Bhushan that he cannot be suspicious of everything, and that he must appreciate ECI's efforts. The bench made it clear that there is no need to be over suspicious.
The ECI submitted that voting machines run on firmware and the program cannot be changed and the machines are kept in strong rooms, which are locked in presence of candidates of political parties. The bench was informed that all machines have different kinds of paper seals and the seal number can be checked at the time when a machine arrives for counting.
The ECI’s counsel, explaining the process of casting of vote on the EVMs, contended before the bench that EVM's control unit commands the VVPAT unit to print its paper slip, which is visible to the voter for seven seconds before it falls into a sealed box. The ECI informed the bench that there was no software in the VVPAT printer.
The ECI said there is a flash memory in every VVPAT, which stores symbols, and the returning officer prepares an electronic ballot, which is loaded into the symbol loading unit.
The counsel made it clear that nothing is preloaded and it will give a serial number, name of the candidate and symbol.
The ECI informed the apex court that there is also an unauthorised access detection module and the machine is not connected with anything with the outside world and anyone who tries to access the machine unauthorisedly, then there is an alert mechanism and the machine gets back to factory mode.
An ECI official, explaining the entire process, submitted before the bench that voting machines go through the mock poll process.
When the bench queried the ECI regarding the possibility of a voter to get the slip after he/she casts the vote, the ECI contended that it could compromise the secrecy of the vote and may be misused outside the booth.
During the morning session, advocate Nizam Pasha, representing a petitioner, submitted that it is a fundamental right to know for whom the vote is cast, and stressed that these are the rights of voters and it does not affect anybody else. Pasha vehemently argued that voter privacy cannot be used to defeat voters’ rights.
The bench said all fundamental rights can be curtailed on the basis of certain exceptions and the fundamental rights are not absolute. The hearing is in progress.
Singh submitted that EVMs are standalone machines and they cannot be tampered with, and also the VVPAT cannot be tampered with. He said human error cannot be ruled out in manual counting but it has been minimized. The bench said paper ballots have huge drawbacks and “we do not want to even think about it”.
Singh said only 25 complaints were received under Rule 49A and all of them were found to be false and no single case of transfer of vote from candidate A to candidate B has been detected and the only error which may have happened is when the data of mock poll has not been deleted.
The bench noted that software is not party specific, it is button specific and the allocation of which button to which party the software engineers do not know. “So, the software has no connect with the symbol data. So, keeping flash memory separate from main memory that problem has been sorted out because the main memory does not know and it only recognizes the button, not the party symbol”, said justice Khanna.
Justice Datta said that it has been alleged that transparent glass has been converted into an opaque glass but the ECI says that right from the beginning it has been the same design, which is being used.
Justice Khanna told Bhushan that it has been pointed out that calculation is done by the central unit after the paper falls down and if two papers fall down then the calculation will show two. “Every time a vote is cast and the paper (from the VVPAT) falls down, the machine is deactivated and it has to be activated by the polling officer", he told Bhushan.
“Everything cannot be suspected. We have heard them (ECI), please appreciate if they have done something good…every time you do not have to be critical about everything….we heard you at length, as were also concerned….if something has to be improved upon, is everything has to be explained to you or to anybody else. As long as they are doing it within four corners of the law, that is fine….”, justice Khanna told Bhushan.
The bench said “a voter has to be satisfied with the explanation given by the ECI, section 114 of the Evidence Act also says official acts are normally presumed to be done….”.
Senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan, representing a petitioner, said it is about the fundamental right. Justice Khanna said that is why we have taken so much time and the court is not disputing that there is a fundamental right but “over suspicion on everything….”. Sankaranarayanan said we are repeatedly saying that we are not making allegations. The bench said, “we have to appreciate, if they (ECI) has given some explanation…..let us conclude and get over…”.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said such kind of petitions have an impact on the voting number because people might feel there is something wrong in the system and why should we vote, and it harms the democracy. “You are making democratic choice of the voter a joke….”, said Mehta.
The bench said if the court were to dispose of this petition last year, then this point would not have been raised and some responsibility lies on us also. “We could not do it due to pressure of work….”, said justice Datta.
