The Supreme Court has reserved the decision within the VVPAT case
New Delhi:
The Supreme Court at the moment mentioned it isn’t the controlling authority for elections and can’t dictate the functioning of Election Commission, a constitutional authority. The remarks got here throughout the listening to on petitions in search of thorough cross-verification of votes forged on Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) with paper slips generated via the VVPAT system. The courtroom has reserved the judgment for now.Â
The bench of Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Dipankar Datta mentioned it can not act on mere suspicion.
Responding to considerations raised by Advocate Prashant Bhushan, showing for petitioner Association for Democratic Reforms, the courtroom mentioned, “If you are predisposed about a thought-process, then we cannot help you… we are not here to change your thought process.”
Amid the Opposition’s apprehensions relating to the EVM voting system, the petitions search a route to cross-verify each vote forged on EVMs with the paper slips generated by the VVPAT system. Currently, this cross-verification is finished for 5 randomly chosen EVMs in each Assembly constituency.
In the sooner hearings, the petitioners raised the difficulty of public belief and drew comparisons with European nations which have gone again to the poll voting system. The courtroom shot down such comparisons, observing that the challenges listed here are totally different. The Election Commission, on its half, burdened that the present system is foolproof.
An EVM has a management unit and a balloting unit. These are linked by a cable. These are additionally linked with a VVPAT — Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail — machine. This machine allows a voter to see if the vote was forged correctly and went to the candidate he/she helps.
As proceedings started this morning, the courtroom sought some clarifications from the ballot physique about microcontrollers within the system and if they are often re-programmed.
The Election Commission responded that each one three models have their very own microcontrollers and these may be programmed solely as soon as. Mr Bhushan contended that these microcontrollers have a flash reminiscence that’s re-programmable. “To say that it is not re-programmable is incorrect,” he mentioned.
The courtroom mentioned it has to belief the ballot physique’s technical report. “They are saying quantum of flash memory is very low. They can store 1024 symbols, not software. They say that as far as microcontrollers in the CU (control unit) is concerned, it is agnostic. It does not recognise the party or symbol, it knows the buttons,” Justice Khanna mentioned.
When Mr Bhushan questioned whether it is doable to load a trojan horse within the flash reminiscence, the courtroom remarked, “Can we issue a mandamus on the basis of a suspicion? We are not the controlling authority of another constitutional authority, we cannot control the elections.”