The Supreme Court has declined to entertain a Public Interest Litigation (PIL), seeking an independent audit of the source code of the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM).
The bench comprising Chief Justice of India (CJI), DY Chandrachud, Justice JB Pardiwala, and Justice Manoj Misra noted that the matter concerned sensitive policy issues and thus, the court was not inclined to interfere with the same.
The Supreme Court said, the petitioner places no actionable material before the court to show that the ECI has acted in breach of its constitutional mandate.
Also, the Apex court added that ultimately placing the source code audit in the public domain interferes with the policy issue, and we are not inclined to interfere in this policy issue.
The petitioner Sunil Ahya, appearing as party-in- person, asserted before the court that the ‘source code’ was like the brain of the EVMs and thus was required to be audited. He stated that there existed no formal audit report of the source code in any public domain and even when he filed an RTI application seeking for the same, the ECI could not provide him with the same.
Referring to such auditing as necessary for the “survival of democracy”, Ahya urged the bench to consider his petition.
However, the bench expressed its disinclination towards entertaining the PIL stating that there already existed requisite security audits for protection in such cases.
(with inputs from ANI)
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