The Supreme Court on Friday said the plea seeking a policy for verification of electronic voting machines will be heard by a bench headed by Justice Dipankar Datta in January next year.A bench comprising Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar said the fresh plea of former Haryana minister and five-time MLA Karan Singh Dalal and one Lakhan Kumar Singla on the issue will be heard by a bench headed by Justice Datta in the week commencing January 20, 2025.
A bench comprising Justice Khanna and Justice Datta had delivered a verdict earlier in April rejecting the demand for bringing back the old paper ballots.
At outset, senior advocate Maninder Singh, appearing for the Election Commission, sought dismissal of the plea, saying that similar petitions for same reliefs were rejected earlier.
The CJI said the bench headed by Justice Datta would hear this now.
Earlier on December 13, a bench of Justices Vikram Nath and P B Varale had refused to hear the plea, saying let it be heard by a bench which had heard similar petitions. Now, it was listed before the CJI-led bench.
In its verdict on April 26, the apex court termed the suspicion of manipulation of the EVMs “unfounded” and said the polling devices were “secured” and eliminated booth capturing and bogus voting.
The top court, however, opened a window for the aggrieved unsuccessful candidates securing the second and third places in poll results while allowing them to seek verification of microcontroller chips embedded in five per cent EVMs per assembly constituency on a written request upon payment of a fee to the poll panel.