The Supreme Court on Wednesday asked the Election Commission to answer its questions regarding cross-verification of the votes in Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) with the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT).
The apex court has summoned a senior Deputy Election Commissioner Nitesh Kumar Vyas at 2pm on Wednesday to clear the confusion regarding the FAQs answered by the ECI in this regard.
The bench comprising Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta had earlier reserved its verdict on petitions seeking complete cross-verification of votes.
What are the questions posed by the Supreme Court?
- Is micro-controller installed in the control unit or VVPAT?
- Is micro-controller one-time programmable?
- How many symbol loading units are available?
- Clarify whether the limitation period for filing election petition is 30 days or 45 days?
- Are EVM, VVPAT and control unit stored together or separately?
Earlier, the Supreme Court had told the petitioners, "Everything cannot be suspected. You cannot be critical of everything. If they (the ECI) have done something good, you have to appreciate it. You don't have to be critical of everything."
The bench had also expressed reservations regarding the manual counting process as it will be humongous task in India, which is the largest democracy. As per current rules, the poll panel verifies VVPAT slips of five randomly selected EVMs in every assembly seat.