Court petitions block 6 of 7 EVM memory check pleas

Six of the seven EVM memory check applications filed by losing candidates in the recently-held Haryana (6) and Jammu & Kashmir (J&K) elections (1) are held up amid the election petitions and hence delayed beyond the stipulated two months' time, ET has learnt.

This includes the Badkhal constituency case in the high court which forced the ECI to controversially amend its rulebook last week, to restrict public access to polling station CCTV footage.

While the EVM Checking and Verification (C&V) process is supposed to be completed within two months of declaration of results, in case of a constituency where an election petition challenging the result may have been filed in courts, the verification of burnt memory will only be done after the candidate concerned gets a court order allowing so, amid pendency of the petition.


The last round of assembly polls has thrown up several cases where candidates have filed both EVM C&V applications as well as election petitions.

Case in point in J&K, where the EVM memory/microcontroller C&V application has been filed for Chenani constituency where BJP's Balwant Singh Mankotia won over Panther Party's Harsh Dev Singh.

Singh, however, has also filed an election petition in the J&K High Court challenging the election verdict which saw him lose by 15,000-odd votes. There are six such EVM C&V applications filed in Haryana following the October 8 results.

Take the case of Palwal-84 assembly constituency, where a C&V request has been filed but former Congress minister Karan Singh Dalal has also moved court against the election victory of BJP's Gaurav Gautam who beat him by 33,605 votes.

A similar situation is seen in Palwal district’s Hodal AC as well where BJP’s Harinder Singh scored a slim 2,595 vote victory over Congress’ Udai Bhan.

Faridabad’s case, on the other hand, led an alarmed poll panel to amend the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961.

Congress’ Vijay Pratap Singh who contested from Badkhal constituency in Faridabad district recently moved court seeking videography of polling booths through his advocate Mehmood Pracha — a request granted by the high court, leading to ECI’s rule change citing security concerns.

A similar election petition situation has arisen in another constituency in Faridabad, ET gathers.

In fact, of the six C&V requests filed, only one in Sirsa will soon see the C&V process go underway as there is no election petition involved here.

It is learnt that ECI’s Haryana office has written to the relevant EVM manufacturer to initiate the C&V for the same.

Following SC directions on April 26, two runners up/losing candidates can now seek burnt memory verification in about 5% EVMs per assembly constituencies for suspected “tampering or modification” within seven days of the counting day.

The microcontroller refers to a simple software programmed to accept votes and retain the total number of such votes; all burnt into a one-time programmable chip loaded in each EVM unit – control unit, balloting unit and voter verifiable paper audit trail. It is unalterable once burnt.

The C&V is to be done in the presence of the candidates along with the EVM manufacturer’s (ECIL and BEL) engineers, as per the ECI protocol.