First Hearing of the EVM-VVPAT Case in the Supreme Court

[Sukla Sen]

<<The petition for 100% verification of EVM votes with VVPAT slips is being heard at a time when the Lok Sabha election process is underway. The Opposition has been asking questions about the foolproof nature of the EVMs and some have even suggested a return to the ballot paper. Currently, 5 EVMs are randomly verified against VVPAT slips per Assembly segment.

...

To an intervenor who contended that EVMs are manufactured by a Public Sector Undertaking and the technical person there is not accountable, Justice Khanna said, “You will be happy with the private sector manufacturing the machines?… If the private sector was manufacturing, you would have come here and said it should not be manufactured by the private sector.”

...

The bench said, "As far as when we have to examine whether the EVMs are functioning properly, we will have to go by the data. With regard to what is the total number of votes polled in a particular year-on-year together, and whether they have tallied it with the total number of votes counted later on, how many cases there were discrepancies. How many cases ultimately the candidates request for counting of the paper slips were done, how much discrepancies were found in that. That will give us the true picture whether the EVMs are being manipulated or the chances of manipulation or not. That data they will provide. We will ask them for that data.”

Bhushan said, “We are not saying that EVMs are being manipulated or have been manipulated. What we are saying is that EVMs can be manipulated because both EVM as well as the VVPAT have a programmable chip.”>>

<https://indianexpress.com/article/india/supreme-court-evm-vvpat-9273740/>

[The "data", as referred to above, may not be publicly available at any one place, if at all.

Hence, if the petitioners are unable to provide, it'll have to come from the ECI -- the keeper of all such info.

One only hopes that the Supreme Court asks the ECI to provide as it asked the (reluctant) SBI in the Poll Bonds case and eventually made it comply.

That will be a great help for comprehending the real issues on the table. And it's too important.]