We cannot control elections: SC

The Supreme Court on Wednesday reserved its verdict on a batch of pleas seeking complete crossverification of votes cast through Electronic Voting Machines with Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail after taking note of answers to its queries from the Election Commission.

A bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta sought answers from an official of the poll panel to five questions related to the functioning of the EVMS, including whether the microcontrollers fitted in them are reprogrammable.

Senior Deputy Election Commissioner Nitesh Kumar Vyas, who had earlier made a presentation to the court on the functioning of EVMS, was summoned by the bench at 2 pm to answer the queries.

The bench had said it needs clarification on certain aspects as there was some confusion over the answers given by the EC to “frequently asked questions” about EVMS. “We have some doubts and need clarification and that’s why we have listed the matter for directions,” the bench said. The top court said, “We don’t want to be factually wrong but doubly sure in our findings.”

It flagged some points on which the court wanted clarification which relates to storage of EVMS, microchip in the controlling unit of EVMS and other aspects.

After the clarifications from Vyas, the bench reserved its judgment again and told Advocate Prashant Bhushan that, “We cannot control the elections. Bhushan, we cannot control another constitutional authority.”

To this, Bhushan said, “I am on increasing VVPAT paper trails.”

Justice Datta said, “Out of the five per cent VVPATS counted, any candidate can show if there is any mismatch. Can we issue a mandamus on the basis of suspicion?