SC junks plea for audit of source code of all EVMs

NEW DELHI: In a dampner to apprehensions about EVMs aired ritualistically prior to elections, Supreme Court on Friday refused to entertain a PIL alleging danger to democracy because of Election Commission's alleged failure to audit source code of all EVMs and put it in public domain.
Apart from the noise about reliability of EVMs and call from certain sections for reverting to paper ballot, it was petitioner Sunil Ahya's third attempt at getting the source code of EVMs audited with a claim that unless "the public know how the brain of the EVM (source code) functions, the survival of democracy would be in danger."
Ahya first filed a PIL on audit of EVM's source code on the eve of 2019 polls, which was rejected by the SC citing the commencement of the election process.He returned to the SC with another PIL after the polls, only to be told to give representation to the EC raising his grievances.
In his fresh PIL, Ahya said he had given three representations without getting any response from EC. He requested the apex court to direct the EC to conduct an independent audit of source code governing the EVMs, applying IEEE1028 standards.
He said a hash function signature, an alpha numeric 40-digit code, is generated when the source code is audited and at least that should be placed in public domain to confirm that EC has done the auditing of the EVMs. When Ahya argued for independent audit of source code and placing of the report in public domain, CJI Chandrachud, instrumental in liberally infusing justice delivery system with information technology tools to make it litigant and public friendly, said, "Making the source code or audit report public is not without danger of the system getting hacked."
"I am familiar with information technology tools. But whenever I instruct immediate introduction of an application in the SC website, my registrar warns me that it would require security clearance. Imagine someone hacking into the case e-filing system? So, there are standard security protocols," the CJI said.
Dismissing the PIL, the apex court said, "There is no material before the court at this stage to indicate that the EC has not taken suitable steps to fulfil its mandate."