EVM-VVPAT verification case: 5 questions Supreme Court asked Election Commission

The Supreme Court on April 24 posed certain queries to the in connection with petitions seeking 100% cross-checking of Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) data against voter-verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) records

The matter will be for an officer of the EC to explain this to the top court.

A bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta is hearing the petitions filed by NGO-Association for Democratic Reforms and others. The hearing in the matter had concluded on April 18, when the verdict was reserved. The matter is listed for directions on April 24, according to legal news website LiveLaw.

The five questions that Justice Khanna said the Bench had are as under.

1- Is the micro-controller installed in the Control Unit or in the VVPAT?

“We were under the impression that it is installed in the Control Unit, but in Frequently Asked Questions, it is indicated that it is installed in VVPAT," the bench said according to LiveLaw. 

2- Is the micro-controller which is installed one-time programmable? 

3- How many Symbol Loading Units are available? 

4- Limitation period for filing election petition is 30 days as such storage is 45 days. But as per Section 81 of the Representation of People Act, limitation period is 45 days. Please clarify?

5- On securing of EVMs, do both control unit and VVPAT bear seals?

The petitions pray that instead of the existing procedure, where the cross-verifies EVM votes with VVPATs in only five randomly selected polling stations in each assembly constituency, all VVPATs should be verified. 

The petitions have also sought measures to ensure that a vote is 'recorded as cast' and 'counted as recorded'. The had opposed the pleas saying that it was another attempt to cast doubt over the functioning