'Do not delete EVM data', Supreme Court orders Election Commission
Supreme Court: The Supreme Court ordered not to delete EVM data after the elections and sought information on EVMs from the Election Commission. The court said that if the losing candidate has any doubts, then an engineer can be asked to check whether there has been any tampering in the EVM.
While hearing a petition on Tuesday, the Supreme Court ordered that the data of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) should not be deleted after elections. The Supreme Court asked the Election Commission how the data of EVMs is secured after elections and what is the process. The court ordered that no data should be deleted from the EVMs now or any new data be fed into them.
The bench headed by Chief Justice (CJI) Sanjeev Khanna asked the Election Commission regarding the process of burning the memory and microcontroller of the EVMs after the elections. The CJI said, there is no dispute in this. If the losing candidate suspects that the EVM may have been tampered with, he can ask the engineer to clarify whether the EVM has been tampered with or not.
The apex court was hearing petitions filed by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), Haryana, and a group of Congress leaders seeking that the Election Commission examine the burnt microcontroller memory of the EVM and ensure that there has been no tampering in the EVM. The next hearing on the case will begin on March 3.
