Judiciary Calls for EVM Verification: Ensuring Electoral Integrity

The Supreme Court deferred a hearing to February 11 on an NGO's plea seeking strict compliance with a judgement concerning EVM verification. The NGO aims to ensure the verification of EVM components, particularly burnt memory and microcontrollers, to maintain electoral integrity. The case highlights ongoing concerns over electronic voting security.

The Supreme Court postponed a crucial hearing concerning electronic voting machine (EVM) verification to February 11. This delay concerns a plea by an NGO, seeking adherence to the Court's decision on EVM authenticity. The bench, headed by Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna, urged the election commission to focus on thorough checking processes of EVM memory and related components.

At the session, Supreme Court Justices emphasized the need for procedural clarification. Justice Dipankar Datta referenced a similar prior case, voicing the necessity for precise verification guidelines. Meanwhile, Advocate Prashant Bhushan, representing the petitioner NGO, insisted the Association for Democratic Reforms was unrelated to the present appeal.

The bench called for detailed court records of related cases, emphasizing EVM verification. With burnt memory and microcontroller assessment pivotal to electoral transparency, the prior judgement allows candidates to verify up to five percent of EVMs per constituency upon request. The discussion spotlights pressing issues around securing digital voting mechanisms.

(With inputs from agencies.)