The Supreme Court on Thursday issued notices to the Centre and Election Commission of India, seeking a response from the two on introducing Electronic Voting Machines with Voter-Verifiable Paper Audit Trails. Although the court admitted that every technology can be hacked or tampered with, it asked for specific evidence that proves the vulnerability of EVMs. It will take up the matter again on May 8.

The bench was hearing a petition filed by Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party. Advocate P Chidambaram, who is representing the BSP, told the Justice J Chelameswar-led bench that the use of EVMs without VVPATs questions the accuracy of the machines, according to The Hindu. “There is no way a voter can verify whether the vote he cast has gone to the right candidate. Without a paper trail, there is no way to verify it. In EVMs, a voter is only pressing a button and does not know whether the machine is recording his vote correctly,” he argued.

Chidambaram also cited a 2013 directive from the apex court on VVPATs. Hailing it as an indispensable requirement for free and fair polls, the court had asked the Election Commission to introduce VVPATs in a phased manner for the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. Chidambaram accused the Centre of not providing the Election Commission with funds to put in place enough VVPAT machines for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

Meanwhile, the BSP has withdrawn its plea to declare the recent Assembly elections null and void because VVPATs were not used. This was after the bench asked whether the party had raised the subject before the polls, reported The Indian Express.

However, the Supreme Court retorted back at the Congress when advocate and Congress leader Kapil Sibal said no country other than South America uses EVMs. “Mr Kapil Sibal, your party only introduced EVMs. How can you blame it now, and how can you say no other country uses it? EVMs are a remedy to booth capturing and other ills,” said Justice Chelameswar.

The controversy over EVM manipulation began after the results of the Assembly elections in five states were declared in March. While the EC has maintained that the voting machines are tamper-proof, Opposition parties have made repeated calls for the polling monitor to switch back to using the paper ballot system.

After receiving a number of complaints claiming that EVMs are vulnerable to hacking, the polling monitor is believed to have decided to hold a “hackathon” from the first week of May to test them. It had said on April 2 that it will soon replace more than nine lakh voting machines with devices that cannot be manipulated.