The microcontrollers in the Electronic Voting Machines and the Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail are “agnostic” as they do not recognise a party or the candidate’s name, the Supreme Court observed verbally on Wednesday, according to The Hindu.

A bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta was hearing a batch of petitions seeking the tallying of all Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail slips to verify votes cast through the Electronic Voting Machines. The court had reserved its judgement in the case on April 18. However, it convened again on Wednesday with questions for the Election Commission.

After hearing the poll panel’s response, the bench once again reserved its judgement in the case.

A Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail is a machine that prints a paper slip of the candidate’s name, serial number and the party’s symbol after a voter has cast their vote. To avoid election fraud, it displays the paper slip for seven seconds for the voters to check if their vote has been cast correctly.

The paper slip then drops down to a locked compartment that only the polling agent can access. The slips are not handed over to the voters. The collected slips can be used to audit voting data stored electronically.

On Wednesday, the bench posed five questions to the Election Commission on the security and functional aspects of the Electronic Voting Machines and the Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail.

It had asked the poll body to submit its responses to the queries by 2 pm on Wednesday. Deputy Election Commissioner Nitesh Kumar Vyas responded to the court’s questions.

The court first asked where the microcontrollers were situated. In response, Vyas said that all three units of an Electronic Voting Machines, which included the ballot units, control units and the Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail, had their own microprocessors.

On the bench’s query about whether the microcontrollers were reprogrammable, the Deputy Election Commissioner said that they were “one-time programmable” at the time of manufacturing, The Hindu reported. He added that the microprocessors could not be changed or physically accessed.

In response, Senior Advocate Prashant Bhushan, representing one of the petitioners Association for Democratic Reforms, said that the claim that the microprocessors could not be reprogrammed was “in doubt”.

Bhushan alleged that the “flash memory” of the processors could be reprogrammed, adding that malicious software could be uploaded along with the party symbols. “When a vote is cast, the signal travels from the ballot unit to the VVPAT to the control unit,” he claimed.

However, the court said that there had not been a single instance to support this allegation.

Datta also remarked verbally that the court cannot be the “controlling authority of another constitutional authority [Election Commission]”.

On the bench’s third question about Symbol Loading Units, Vyas said that the Electronics Corporation of India Limited had manufactured 1,904 units and Bharat Electronics Limited 3,154 units so far, adding that more could be produced within a month.

The Symbol Loading Unit uploads symbols and names of candidates contesting in a particular seat on a Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail slip.

The Supreme Court also asked a question about the storage of the Electronic Voting Machines and the Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail. The Deputy Election Commissioner said that the machines were sealed and stored in strong rooms for a statutory period of 45 days after the votes are counted.

The strong rooms were only opened after 45 days following written confirmation from the concerned High Courts stating that there were no election petitions contesting the results. An election petition allows for an inquiry into the validity of the results of parliamentary or local government elections.

The court then enquired whether the Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail, the ballot units and the control units were stored together. In response, Vyas said that the units were stored separately till they were commissioned to the various constituencies.

After a 2019 Supreme Court order, Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail slips from only five randomly selected polling stations in each Assembly segment are verified.

The court has been hearing petitions seeking 100% verification of the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail slips.

Watch: Indian elections: How secure is the EVM-VVPAT process?