Supreme Court Directs EC Not To Delete Election Data On EVM Plea

The Supreme Court has instructed the EC not to delete data from EVMs and to provide information on the Standard Operating Procedure for EVM data handling after elections.

Supreme Court Directs EC Not To Delete Election Data On EVM Plea

Source : PTI

The Supreme Court on Tuesday directed the Election Commission of India not to delete data from the Electronic Voting Machines as it asked the poll panel about the Standard Operating Procedure for EVM after elections are over. 

The apex court made the direction to the poll panel on a petition seeking that the data from the EVMs are not deleted after the counting is over. For now, do not delete any data from EVM nor reload any data, said a bench led by Chief Justice of India Sanjeev Khanna, reported NDTV. 

The poll panel is supposed to provide information to the court about the process of burning EVM memory and microcontroller after elections. 

"This is not adversarial," said the Chief Justice. "If the losing candidate wants clarification, the engineer can give clarification that there has been no tampering," he added.

The court made the comment while hearing a petition by the Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR), Haryana, and a group of Congress leaders. The petition seeks that the court directs the Commission to formulate policy for checking original burnt memory/microcontroller of EVM components.

The plea has also sought that the burnt memory and microcontroller of the EVM be verified by the engineer to prove that EVM has not been tampered with.

The next hearing on the the matter will be heard on March 3.