The Supreme Court of India has announced that a plea seeking a policy for the verification of electronic voting machines (EVMs) will be heard by a bench led by Justice Dipankar Datta in January 2025. This decision follows the submission of a fresh petition by former Haryana minister Karan Singh Dalal and one Lakhan Kumar Singla, both of whom contested recent elections in Haryana and secured the second-highest votes in their constituencies.
Justice Datta’s bench will examine the plea starting the week of January 20, 2025.Previously, a bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar had handled the case. They earlier dismissed the demand to revert to paper ballots, and the bench led by Justice Datta will now hear the new petition.
On December 13, a bench comprising Justices Vikram Nath and P.B. Varale declined to hear the plea, suggesting that the bench that had addressed similar petitions in the past should hear it. The Supreme Court has now directed CJI Khanna’s bench to list the matter.
Dalal and Singla’s petition calls for the implementation of a protocol to examine the “burnt memory” or microcontroller chips in the four components of the EVM: the control unit, ballot unit, VVPAT (Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail), and symbol loading unit. They argue that the Election Commission (EC) has failed to comply with the Supreme Court’s earlier order from April 26, 2024, which directed the verification of five percent of EVMs per assembly constituency after the announcement of the election results.
While the petition does not challenge the election results themselves, it seeks a clear and transparent mechanism for verifying EVMs to prevent any tampering. The petitioners argue that the EC’s current standard operating procedures only involve basic diagnostic tests and mock polls, without addressing the verification of the burnt memory for tampering.
The petitioners have urged the Supreme Court to direct the EC to implement the verification process within eight weeks. The case comes amidst ongoing election-related petitions before the Punjab and Haryana High Court, challenging the results of recent elections, where the BJP secured 48 out of 90 assembly seats in Haryana.
 will be heard by a bench led by Justice Dipankar Datta in January 2025. This decision follows the submission of a fresh petition by former Haryana minister Karan Singh Dalal and one Lakhan Kumar Singla, both of whom contested recent elections in Haryana and secured the second-highest votes in their constituencies.){kind=link}