Though hackers from two political parties were supposed to participate in the four-hour challenge, in effect NCP is the only party that will attempt to hack the EVMs during the challenge. The CPM has stated that it is not going to try and hack EVMs but will suggest precautions to ensure transparent polls.
The Election Commission's (EC) Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) challenge will take place as scheduled on Saturday. The veil of suspense over the event's fate was lifted on Friday evening when the Uttarakhand High Court rejected a petition seeking a stay on the EVM hacking challenge.
"The EVM challenge is on as scheduled. It will start at 10 am. Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Communist Party of India- Marxist (CPM) have nominated three representatives each. The challenge will take place in two separate halls simultaneously," an EC spokesperson said.
Though hackers from two political parties were supposed to participate in the four-hour challenge, in effect NCP is the only party that will attempt to hack the EVMs during the challenge. The CPM has stated that it is not going to try and hack EVMs but will suggest precautions to ensure transparent polls.
NCP's request for providing serial numbers of battery and memory will be met at the time of the challenge since the EVMs are currently in a sealed condition, an EC spokesperson added.
The EC has resurrected 14 randomly selected EVMs in sealed condition from 12 Assembly constituencies of Punjab, Uttrakhand and Uttar Pradesh with their ballot unit and control unit numbers for the challenge. The machines have been chosen from the cities that that were caught in the eye of the storm of alleged EVM tampering in the recently concluded Assembly elections. They include Bhatinda and Patiala in Punjab, Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh and Dehradun in Uttrakhand.
The court was hearing a petition filed by Ramesh Pandey, Vice-President of the State Congress committee that challenged the constitutional validity of the event hosted by the EC.
"The EVMs are manufactured only by the Electronics Corporation of India Ltd. The chip is developed in house," a division bench said when the court found no merit in the petition.
"However, we leave it now to the wisdom/discretion of the Election Commission of India to hold the demonstration/challenge on June 3, 2017, but with a caveat that even after it is held, as scheduled, it will not affect the outcome of the pending election petitions," the court added.
During the hearing, Senior Advocate Arvind Vashisth who was representing Pandey, argued that EC's jurisdiction ended with the conclusion of the elections. This challenge organised by them was thus unconstitutional and beyond their power.
Amit Sharma and Shobhit Saharia, appearing for EC, vehemently argued that there was no scope for EVM tampering. This exercise has been undertaken by the Election Commission of India to allay the fears of political parties.
The court observed that despite the fact that there were several pending petitions challenging the use of EVMs, political parties had conducted a sustained campaign to "tarnish" EC's image. It added that the political parties "should have waited for the outcome of election petitions pending in this Court as well as in other High Courts," before forwarding any criticism.
The Election Commission has successfully held the free and fair elections. We cannot permit the political parties to lower down the image and prestige of the constitutional body," the court said in its 17-page-long order, released late Friday night. It further observed that it was the court's duty to insulate constitutional bodies from "unhealthy criticism."
"The foundation of democracy would be weakened in case this tendency, on the part of certain sections of the society to damage the institution by leveling unsubstantiated allegations, is not curbed," a division bench comprising of Justices Rajiv Sharma and Sharad Kumar Sharma said. "The right of freedom of speech and expression does not permit to level unsubstantiated charges against the functionaries of the constitutional bodies," the court added.
In the interest of larger justice, the court also restrained all political parties, NGOs and individuals from "criticizing the use of EVMs in the recently conducted elections of the State Assemblies even by approaching the Electronic Media, Press, Radio, Facebook, Twitter etc. till the decision of the election petitions."
Questions Remain
Why can't technical experts who have no political affiliation participate?
Why are foreign experts not allowed when the chips are procured from Japan and the US?
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