New Delhi, February 11 (HS): The Supreme Court, while hearing a petition seeking verification of EVMs after the elections, has issued a notice to the Election Commission. A bench headed by Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna has asked the Election Commission to provide information about the process regarding the memory and microcontroller of EVMs after the elections. The court will hear the matter in the week starting from March 3.

This petition has been filed by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR). During the hearing, the court said that the Election Commission should tell what is the standard operating procedure on this issue. The Supreme Court also ordered the Election Commission to neither delete any data from the EVMs nor reload any data at present.

During the hearing, senior advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for the petitioner, said that the Election Commission's standard operating procedure for verification of EVMs is not in accordance with the Supreme Court's decision of April 2024. He said that we want someone to check the software and hardware of EVM and tell whether it has been tampered with or not.

During the hearing, advocate Devadatta Kamat, appearing on behalf of another petitioner Sarv Mitar, said that only a mock drill is done for the verification of EVM and the cost of one machine is Rs. 40,000, while the cost of the entire machine is Rs. 30,000. Then the Chief Justice asked the Election Commission to reduce its cost from Rs. 40,000

Hindusthan Samachar / Jun Sarkar