Wed May 07 17:29:21 UTC 2025: ## Supreme Court Orders EVM Data Verification, Rejects Full Data Erasure

**NEW DELHI, May 8, 2025** – The Supreme Court of India ruled on Wednesday that the Election Commission of India (ECI) cannot erase data from Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) requested for verification by candidates. The court’s decision follows a plea by the NGO Association for Democratic Reforms, which argued the ECI’s Standard Operating Procedure didn’t align with a previous April 2024 ruling on EVM-VVPAT verification.

While upholding the EVM system and rejecting calls to reinstate paper ballots, the court mandated that verification of EVMs be conducted by engineers from Bharatiya Electrical Limited (BEL) and Electronic Corporation of India Limited. These engineers will certify the integrity of the EVM’s memory and software, ensuring no tampering occurred.

The court further clarified that the ECI can conduct mock polls upon candidate request. It also reiterated its previous directive allowing for the verification of the burnt memory of microcontrollers from 5% of EVMs in each assembly segment. This verification, to be initiated by a written request from candidates placing second or third, will be carried out by engineers from the EVM manufacturers if tampering is suspected.

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