In a significant move, which could possibly be first of its kind, Maharashtra high court has directed to conduct forensic test of EVMs used at two polling booth. This is in order to detect any signs of EVM tempering. The polling booth in question is located in Parvatti constituency in Pune.
High court of Maharashtra has framed a set of 9 questions for FSL (Forensic Science Laboratory). It has directed FSL to analyse the EVM and find out if there is a chance of adding an external memory chip to it, which could possible influence the number of votes.
This decision has come in response to a complaint filed by Abhay Chhajed, a congress candidate from the same constituency in 2014 assembly elections. BJP’s Madhuri Misal had won the constituency and Abhay Chhajed moved to the court seeking a forensic test of the EVMs. He believed that he got lesser number of votes than expected.
Justice Mridula Bhatkar had heard the matter on May 4th and directed FSL to conduct a test on the EVMs. Also, she directed Abhay Chhajed to bear the cost of forensic analysis. In her statement, she directed FSL to check for any possibility of an electronic device within the EVM which could e controlled externally. The report by FSL also needs to include whether there has been any tempering with the machine codes or the one time programmable code (OTP) at the time of election.
The court also wants to know whether there has been any assessment of data between the dates of polls and counting. FSL has been asked to submit a report before 15th June and the court will again hear the case on June 20th.