HC adjourns DMK’s plea on EVMs to June 25

CHENNAI: The chief bench of the Madras High Court adjourned the DMK plea preferred against the design of third generation (M3) electronic voting machine, to June 25 as the ruling party submitted that it pressing the request for the future elections and not for the forthcoming Parliament election.

The first division bench comprising Chief Justice SV Gangapurwala and Justice J Sathya Narayana Prasad asked the DMK why the petition was moved at the threshold of the elections.

Senior counsel NR Elango representing the ruling party submitted that the Election Commission (EC) published the handbook in January, since then various representation has made, but no action has been taken.

Further, the plea is not for the ensuing Parliament election, but for the elections to be conducted in the future, said the counsel.

The counsel submitted that in M3 EVMs the voter-verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) has been placed in between balloting unit and control unit, which is in contradiction with the rule 49 P of conduct of election rules, 1961.

Further, the counsel also submitted that the EC has given limitless power to the returning officer and sought to issue guidelines under Rule 95 of the conduct of Election rules, laying down the procedure to be followed while handling the EVMs.

The standing counsel for EC submitted that the M3 EVMs were used in the elections from 2013 in phased manner. The M3 EVMs were used during the 2021 Assembly election in the state and no dispute was raised by the DMK, further they also won the election, said the counsel. This petition would confuse the voters and sought to dismiss the petition.

After the submissions, the bench observed the matter can be heard at leisure, since the plea is for the future elections and posted the matter to June 25 for further submission.

DMK’s organising secretary RS Bharathi filed a writ petition in HC seeking to direct the EC not to place the printer between the balloting unit and the control unit as done in the third-generation electronic voting machine.

This opens a myriad of technical possibilities to corrupt the integrity of the data that is fed to the control unit from the balloting unit, said the petition. The 1961 rules mandate that the balloting unit and the control unit of the EVMs have to be placed in direct contact with each other and not allow the printer to be in direct connection with the control unit, said the petition.