Uttarakhand HC stays ECI's EVM challenge, calls it unconstitutional

The Uttarakhand High Court has stayed the EVM challenge organised by the Election Commission of India. The court observed that the ECI does not have the authority to undertake such an exercise.

The court held that such an exercise is unconstitutional in nature. Hence the hackathon to be conducted tomorrow cannot be held the court said while issuing the stay order. The court also directed the ECI to conduct a full bench meeting today itself. The court said that following the meeting the ECI must inform it about the plans of conducting the EVM hackathon.

Following the assembly elections held in the five states several parties questioned the authenticity of the Electronic Voting Machine. The ECI then decided to hold a hackathon on June 3.

The conditions of the challenge were:

The Challenger under Challenge I shall be deemed to have ''FAILED'' if:

The EVM becomes non-functional after the tamper attempt made by the Challenger.

The EVM is functional and results displayed on the CU after conduct of challenge attempt are the same as ECI declared results stored on the chosen CU (prior to the pressing of CLEAR Button).

If the Challenger violates any of the guidelines prescribed for the EVM Challenge.

The challenger withdraws from current challenge.

The Challenger under Challenge II shall be deemed to have ''FAILED'' if:

The EVM becomes non-functional after the tamper attempt made by the Challenger.

The EVM remains functional and after erasing the earlier stored result, a mock poll or full poll is conducted by the Challenger along with his challenge attempt and manually recorded votes(by ECI staff) are the same as that stored on the chosen CU after the said mock/full poll.

If the Challenger violates any of the guidelines prescribed for the EVM Challenge.

The challenger withdraws from current challenge.

OneIndia News