Daily Pioneer: T. N Raghunatha: Mumbai: Thursday, September 20, 2018.
The Bombay High Court on Wednesday issued notices to the Election Commission of India (EC), Maharashtra State Election Commission (SEC) and two public sector Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) manufacturing companies and others in a public interest litigation seeking investigations into the supply and use of EVMs manufactured by the two State-run companies and a stay on the use of the machines pending the probe.
A HC bench of Justice S.S. Kemkar and Justice S.V. Kotwal ordered issuance of notices to the EC, SEC, Electronics Corporation of India Ltd (ECIL) and Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL) and others to file their say, while hearing a public interest litigation filed RTI activist by Manoranjan S Roy.
The others who were served notices are the Union Home Ministry, IT Department and Maharashtra Government.
The HC bench directed the Additional Solicitor-General of India and state Advocate-General to appear at the next hearing to be held after two weeks.
In a petition filed on behalf of Roy in March this year, counsels SP Chaudhari P Pawar and Santosh Saroj has urged the high court for setting up of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) into the supply of EVMs by the two companies. He has also rooted for a stay on the use of EVMs pending the completion of the investigations.
Among other things, the petitioners urged the high court to order seizure of all the EVMs in circulation across the country and take them into its possession, pending the investigations.
In his petition, Roy brought to the attention of the court about the manner in which a large number of EVMs and Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPATs) were being ordered by the EC and various SECs and that there were huge contradictions in the figures of orders and supplies made by the two manufacturers.
Roy has based hispetition based on the information he received from the parties concerned under the RTI Act.
Roy told the court that according to information received by him under RTI Act, the Bengaluru-based BEL had despatched large quantities of electronic voting machines by ‘hand-delivery’ and ‘by post’ to various unidentified recipients.
Quoting the RTI replies, Roy stated that BEL had informed him that it had despatched 820 balloting units (BUs) of the machines in bulk packaging, and on two occasions in April (2017) it sent 245 (VVPAT) machines ‘By Hand’, to certain recipients and destinations.
Roy said that on both the occasions, BEL did not state to whom the consignments of BUs were ‘posted’ or from where the entire lot of the ‘hand-delivered’ VVPATs originated and whether they were received safely by the intended recipients.
Roy said that for the entire lot of 820 BUs sent through India Posts, there were only nine Docket Nos. assigned for the total consignment, which comprises two boxes with 50 BUs each and one box each with 60, 70, 80, 90, 100, 110 and 210 BUs.
“This is misleading as each box has a specific size depending on the dimensions of the BUs. The BEL’s reply shows the entire consignment was posted in only nine boxes, though the Indian Posts does not accept — nor is equipped to handle — such huge parcels,” the petitioner said.
Roy said that BEL had told him that on April 6 and April 10, 2017, that it delivered VVPATs in three parcels — 65, 70 and 110, respectively — ‘By Hand’ and ‘urgent delivery’ to avoid the regular logistics route.
Alluding to several discrepancies that he had noticed in the “indiscriminate” orders and deliveries of EVMs made by the two state-run companies, Roy said that between 1989-1990 to 2015-2016, BEL had supplied 125,149 EVMs to Karnataka, 169,975 to Bihar, 159,900 to Uttar Pradesh, 140,500 to Tamil Nadu, 87,325 to Andhra Pradesh, 50,850 to Gujarat, 50,050 to Rajasthan, 23,000 to Jharkhand, 10,000 to Delhi, 3,000 to Manipur and 2,000 to Sikkim.
Surprisingly, BEL also supplied 500 EVMs to Chandigarh, which is the only city to get its own machines. Normally, the EVMs go to the respective states from where they are distributed.
In his petition, Roy demanded that as to why the BEL and the Election Commission of India had used different yardstick in the supply of EVMs to Chandigarh.
Alluding to the supply of VVPATs to various states, the petitioner said that he had received information stating that BEL had during 2013-14 supplied the highest number of VVPATs — 2,455 — to Karnataka, followed by 2,275 to Bihar, 2,140 to Gujarat, 1,500 to Mizoram, 1,475 to Tamil Nadu, 130 to Delhi and 25 to EC.
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