Kolkata High Court Orders Removal of Old EVM Data Ahead of Local Elections
The Kolkata High Court has directed the West Bengal Election Commission to delete old EVM data in preparation for upcoming urban body elections.
Kolkata, October 14 (Daily Kiran) : A division bench of the Calcutta High Court has instructed the West Bengal Election Commission (WBEC) to erase old data from electronic voting machines (EVMs) in light of the upcoming urban local body elections, which include the Kolkata Municipal Corporation and Howrah Municipal Corporation.
However, the bench, comprising Chief Justice Ravindra Vitthalrao Ghuge and Justice Om Narayan Roy, specified that data related to three particular wards of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation and the Contai municipality in East Midnapore should not be deleted.
During a previous hearing on October 12, the Chief Justice had inquired whether it was feasible to save the data from the EVMs on a hard disk and if it was necessary to remove old data before using the machines in the upcoming elections. In response, the WBEC confirmed that deleting the old data was indeed possible.
Previously, several EVMs had been secured due to issues related to urban local body elections. With multiple elections scheduled for November and results expected in December, the WBEC faced a shortage of EVMs. Consequently, they approached the Calcutta High Court for permission to delete data from the relevant EVMs and reuse them.
On Wednesday, additional advocate general Bilabial Bhattacharya informed the court that a Supreme Court stay order only applied to specific wards under the Contai municipality, while other wards were under the jurisdiction of the Calcutta High Court. Following this, the division bench directed the WBEC to proceed with the removal of old data from all EVMs, except those linked to the specified wards in Kolkata and Contai.
