New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday said the plea seeking a policy for verification of electronic voting machines (EVMs) should go before the same bench that delivered a verdict in April rejecting the demand for bringing back the old paper ballots.
When the plea on EVMs came up for hearing, a bench of Justices Vikram Nath and PB Varale told petitioner’s counsel senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan, “Why don’t this matter go before the same bench?”
Sankaranarayanan informed the court about its April judgment on a batch of pleas over EVMs.
“That is what I am saying. It (plea) should go before the same bench,” Justice Nath reiterated.
The bench further said: “To our understanding, the reliefs claimed by means of this petition under the Article 32 of the Constitution of India would require interpretation/modification/implementation of the directions issued by this court vide judgement dated
April 26, 2024 ...”
In its verdict on April 26, the Apex Court termed the suspicion of manipulation of the EVMs “unfounded” and said the polling devices were “secured” and eliminated booth capturing and bogus voting.
The top court, however, opened a window for the aggrieved unsuccessful candidates securing second and third places in poll results while allowing them to seek verification of microcontroller chips embedded in five per cent EVMs per Assembly constituency on a written request upon payment of a fee to the poll panel.
It asked the Apex Court registry to place the papers of the case before Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna for passing appropriate orders on whether the petition would be listed before the same bench or another bench.
The petition was filed by former Haryana minister and five-time MLA Karan Singh Dalal and one Lakhan Kumar Singla.
It sought compliance of the April 26 judgement of the top court delivered in the case of ‘Association for Democratic Reforms versus Union of India’.
Dalal and Singla secured the second-highest votes in their respective constituencies and sought a direction to the Election Commission (EC) to implement a protocol for examining the original “burnt memory” or microcontroller of the four components of the EVM – the control unit, ballot unit, VVPAT and symbol
loading unit.