The Gujarat High Court on Friday pulled up the Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee for making baseless allegations on the functioning of EVMs. The court asked the petitioner to substantiate the claim that old EVM machines can be tampered with.

The third division bench of Justice Akil Kureshi and Justice AY Kogje was hearing a petition filed by the Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) challenging that EVM machines, Voters Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) and control units were defective and could be manipulated. The prayer was that the court should direct the Election Commission and Gujarat Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) to not use the defective units at polling booths.

When the matter came up for hearing, the election commission in its reply claimed that in the first level checking, a total of 4,066 VVPATs and 3050 balloting units were found to be defective and were replaced. At all district headquarters, EVM machines were ready for use, and not one of them had any technical snags.

Then the Congress alleged that old EVM machines could be tampered with easily and so the court should direct the CEO and EC to replace old EVMs and these should be replaced with new ones. The petitioner also alleged that while checking the EVM, EC's guidelines were not followed.

This irked the bench, and the court said that instead of making baseless allegations, the party should concentrate on its campaign. If it was thinking that moving such petitions can get cheap publicity, then it was wrong. The matter has been kept for further hearing on November 22.

On the last hearing, the petitioner's advocate Pankaj Champaneri's submission before the bench was that from the newspaper report, the petitioner had come to know about the defect and tampering of EVMs and VVPAT machines.

He further submitted that if the user votes for a party, the control machine showed a vote to BJP. The story was similar at Surendranagar and Patan. It was also observed that VVPAT printouts were blank and did not show to whom the person cast his vote. Then too, the court questioned the credibility of the news report and asked for an explanation.

What the EC said

When the matter came up for hearing, the Election Commission in its reply claimed that in the first level checking, a total of 4,066 VVPATs and 3050 balloting units were found to be defective and were replaced. At all district headquarters, EVM machines were ready for use, and not one of them had any snag.