Kolkata: Ahead of elections in seven key civic bodies, Calcutta High Court on Monday sought a detailed report from the state election commission on shortage of electronic voting machines (EVMs) and voter verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) machines.A division bench of HC chief justice Ravindra Vithalrao Ghuge and justice Om Narayan Rai also asked the SEC if polling data collected from EVMs and VVPAT machines could be stored separately on hard disks, and if such a procedure was legally permissible.During an earlier hearing, the HC chief justice had sought the opinion of litigants in election petitions where EVMs were directed to be preserved about SEC’s plea for release of EVMs.Senior advocate Sabyasachi Chatterjee, one of the counsels in the case, said, “There was a court direction to preserve all EVMs in accordance with the law related to the preservation of EVMs and ballot boxes under the election law. But the SEC is saying that to proceed, it would need a modification of that order.”
