EVM-VVPAT Verification Case: Here Are Supreme Court's Five Questions And Election Commission's Answers To Them

The Supreme Court (SC) on Wednesday (24 April) sought some clarifications from the Election Commission of India (ECI) on the EVM-VVPAT verification case and reserved its judgment. Let's understand the answers given by the ECI:

1. The SC questioned whether the micro-controller is installed in the Controlling Unit (CU) or the VVPAT, responding to which the ECI said that all three units - CU, Ballot Unit (BU) and VVPAT have their own micro-controllers, which cannot be accessed physically.

2. Justice Khanna also asked whether the installed micro-controller is one-time programmable, to which ECI replied, "All the microcontrollers are one-time programmable. They are burnt at the time of manufacturing. They cannot be changed."

3. The SC also questioned about the availability of Symbol Loading Units (SLU), responding to which ECI gave approximate data that Electronics Corporation of India Limited (ECIL) has 1,400 SLUs and Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) has 3,400 SLUs.

4. The SC questioned about the period for storage, to which the ECI said, "All the machines are stored for 45 days. On the 46th day, the Chief Election Officer (CEO) writes to Registrars to ascertain if any election petition filed. If any Election Petition is filed, the machines remain stored."

5. On the question of whether the CU only is sealed or the VVPAT is kept separately, ECI said that all three (BU, CU and VVPAT) are sealed after the polling, LiveLaw reported.