Supreme Court tells EC to not erase EVM data to be verified

New Delhi, February 11, 2025: The Supreme Court of India has directed the Election Commission (EC) not to erase or reload data in Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) while verification processes are underway. The order came in response to a plea filed by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), which raised concerns over the EC’s Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for verifying EVMs.

A Bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Dipankar Datta issued the directive while hearing the interim application filed by ADR. The Election Commission’s senior counsel, Maninder Singh, assured the court that the poll body would clarify its position through an affidavit explaining the procedure for EVM verification.

ADR had claimed that the SOP of the EC concerning the verification of EVMs was not in compliance with the Supreme Court’s April 26, 2024 verdict passed on the EVM-VVPAT case. The Bench directed the EC to furnish an affidavit concerning the SOP and confirm the verification of burnt memory, micro-controllers, and Symbol Loading Units (SLUs) of EVMs.

The court also drew attention to the exorbitant fee that EC was charging the verification of EVMs. The Bench described the existing amount of Rs 40,000 per verification to be too costly and requested EC to reduce its fee. It has scheduled for further hearing on the matter starting from the week of March 3, 2025.
Background and court’s previous decisions

The Supreme Court had earlier dismissed Public Interest Litigations (PILs) seeking a return to the paper ballot system or a 100% cross-verification of votes cast through EVMs with Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) slips. However, it had issued directions to strengthen the existing EVM system.

The judgment by the court on April 26, 2024 allowed unsuccessful candidates who won second and third positions in an election to seek verification of microcontroller chips in up to 5% of EVMs per assembly constituency. The EC was to permit such verification upon a written request and payment of a prescribed fee. Furthermore, the judgment directed that engineers from EVM manufacturing companies must verify 5% of the EVMs in each assembly constituency after election results are declared.

Court Arguments

The senior advocate, Prashant Bhushan of ADR, argued that the current SOP by the EC on EVM verification was inappropriate and did not satisfy the earlier order of the court. He reiterated that it should be looked at the hardware as well as the software aspect of EVMs to see whether there were any manipulations made.

The Bench clarified that its earlier judgment did not allow the deletion or reloading of polled data in EVMs. The order was to have all EVMs inspected and authenticated by engineers of the manufacturing companies after the election. The EC counsel, Maninder Singh, assured the court that the poll body would clarify its process of verification in an affidavit and would not alter the data.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court did not entertain a similar petition filed by former Haryana minister Karan Singh Dalal and Lakhan Kumar Singla, who was a candidate in the recently held Haryana Assembly elections. The petition had sought a directive for the EC to establish a policy for verifying the original burnt memory and micro-controller of the four components of EVMs. The court rejected their plea saying that an earlier petition on the same issue was withdrawn without permission to file a fresh one.

The Supreme Court continues to watch the issue and its latest order strengthens the issue of transparency in the electoral process and the requirement of proper checking of EVMs to create public confidence in India’s democratic system.