‘Missing’ EVMs
'...The ECI’s responses to a public interest litigation (PIL) petition on EVMs in the Bombay High Court over the past 13 months are perhaps illustrative of its approach to the issue. The PIL filed on March 27, 2018, by Manoranjan Roy, a right to information (RTI) activist in Mumbai, was about the processes involved in the procurement, storage and deployment of EVMs and VVPATs by the ECI and State Election Commissions (SECs). It sought directions to the ECI, the Maharashtra State Election Commission (MSEC), the Union Home Ministry and two public sector EVM manufacturing companies—Electronics Corporation of India Ltd (ECIL), Hyderabad, and Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL), Bengaluru—to furnish details regarding the order, supply and delivery of EVMs. The PIL was founded entirely on data collected through the RTI Act.
The RTI documents highlighted glaring discrepancies in all three operations—procurement, storage and deployment—and also pointed to grave financial irregularities to the tune of Rs.116.55 crore. The documents, submitted as “exhibits” to substantiate the arguments of the PIL, brought out huge disparities between the accounting of the number of EVMs the ECI had received over a period of time and the supply records of the manufacturers. They show that nearly 20 lakh EVMs that the manufacturers affirm to have delivered to the ECI are apparently not in the latter’s possession. Neither the ECI nor the SECs have been able to throw light on the issue of the missing EVMs despite seven hearings of the PIL over the past one year...'
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