New Delhi: The Supreme Court of India on Friday dismissed petitions advocating for ballot paper voting and declined requests for cross-verification of votes cast in Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) with Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT).
However, the Supreme Court issued two directives to the Election Commission. It mandated that after symbols are loaded into an EVM, the symbol loading unit must be sealed and secured in containers in the presence of polling agents and candidates. These sealed containers, housing the Symbol Loading Units (SLUs), must be stored alongside the EVMs for at least 45 days following the declaration of results.
Additionally, the apex court stipulated that the burnt memory semicontroller in 5% of the EVMs — comprising the Control Unit, Ballot Unit, and VVPAT — should be verified by engineers from the manufacturing companies upon a written request made within seven days of the result announcement.