MP High Court Dismisses Plea Seeking Direction To Election Commission Of India To 'Rule Out Discrepancies In EVMs'

The Madhya Pradesh High Court recently dismissed a plea seeking a direction to the Election Commission of India (ECI) to take effective measures to rule out the discrepancies in the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) so as to conduct free and fair upcoming assembly and general elections.

Essentially, the Bench of Chief Justice Ravi Malimath and Justice Vijay Kumar Shukla was hearing the plea filed by Madhya Pradesh Jan Vikas Party, a registered political party under the Representation of People Act, 1951 (RPA) that sought several directions to the ECI including a direction to comply with the RP Act, 1951.

Taking into account the prayers, the Court, while dismissing the plea, observed thus:

"The prayers sought are for a direction to the respondents to comply with law. There cannot be a mandamus to enforce a statute. Even otherwise we do not find that there is any violation which warrants any interference by this Court. Various procedure as enunciated under the Act and the Rules are to be followed by the respondent-Election Commission of India. They have been doing so."

The petitioner relied on various provisions of the Representation of People Act and the Rules to submit that there has been a violation of the Rules on various fronts and therefore, the respondent-Election Commission of India be directed to take effective measures to comply with the Rules. It was also submitted before the Court that there are a lot of discrepancies in the Electronic Voting Machines.

Further, stating that tasks such as manufacturing, transportation, randomization, symbol loading in the EVMs are performed by the manufacturing companies, the plea submitted that the statutory provisions and the rules have been violated by the use of electronic voting machines as all these acts must be done only by Election Commission of India.

Hence, filing the instant petition, the petitioner, sought the following directions to the ECI (list not exhaustive ):-

• To take ef active measures to comply the rule 49E (2), wherein it is mandatory to show the storage empty and to ascertain the polling agents that there is no prior voting recorded earlier;
• To take efficacious steps restraining EVM to count the vote at polling booth center because counting must be held in the presence of the counting of icer and the returning of icer;
• To disclose the approved hardware configuration of the electronic voting machines and approved size, shape, color, and number of components, before the representatives of the candidates of the political parties;
• To allow the technical experts/engineers of the petitioner political party with necessary equipment's at the time of first level checking, commissioning, candidate setting randomization, and at the time of symbol loading to check and examine the fairness of all the stages of the electoral process;
• To demonstrate the source code/programming/software to examine that there is no such programming which benefits the particular candidates or to the candidates of a particular party;
• To permit the petitioner on the polling day, to examine the EVMs with its technical experts/engineers in respect of software/sourcecode/programming or microchip as well as any Bluetooth or wireless device, may not be available in the machines which benefit the special candidate or particular political party as per rule 49 (E)(2) of the election conduct rule 1961;
• To certify each and every machine that it is original and there is no tampering or manipulation.

On considering contentions, the Court didn't find any ground that called for any interference. In case, there is any violation then the appropriate remedy is also provided for the same in the Act, added the Court as it dismissed the plea.

Case title - Madhya Pradesh Jan Vikas Party v. Election Commission of India

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