New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday scheduled a fresh plea seeking a policy for verifying electronic voting machines (EVMs to detect possible tampering) for a hearing in January 2025 before a bench led by Justice Dipankar Datta.
A bench headed by Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna said it will take up the petition, filed by former Haryana minister Karan Singh Dalal and Lakhan Kumar Singla, in the week beginning January 20, 2025. The plea seeks implementation of the Supreme Court’s April 26 verdict that upheld the security of EVMs but allowed losing candidates placed second or third to request verification of microcontroller chips in five percent of EVMs per Assembly constituency.
Senior advocate Maninder Singh, representing the Election Commission, urged dismissal of the plea, noting similar petitions had been rejected earlier. The court had previously refused to return to paper ballots, calling allegations of EVM manipulation “unfounded.”
