NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday decided to hear after two weeks a plea seeking a direction to the authorities concerned that physical access to the electronic voting machines (EVMs) be limited only to authorised engineers after obtaining security clearances.
The petition sought a direction to publish the list of such authorised engineers. The list should be made available to political parties and also uploaded on the website of the Election Commission of India (ECI), it urged.
The petition, filed by Uttarakhand resident Ashish Goyal, said the upkeep and maintenance of EVMs during elections is by the authorised engineers of Electronics Corporation of India Limited and Bharat Electronics Limited.
The two government firms have been made parties in the matter.
The plea said that permitting outsiders such as consultants, and that too without the necessary security or background checks, to have physical access to the EVMs raised serious doubts about the integrity of the EVMs.
A bench of Justices A K Sikri and Ashok Bhushan asked the petitioner to serve the copy on the counsel for the poll panel and posted the matter for further hearing after two weeks.