Today, the Supreme Court of India refuse to entertain a PIL seeking an independent audit of source codes of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs).

The bench comprising CJI DY Chandrachud, Justice JB Pardiwala, and Justice Manoj Misra observed that the matter concerned sensitive policy issues and thus, the court was not inclined to interfere with the same.

In the said matter, Sunil Ahya, petitioner made a claim in court that the 'source code' of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) should be likened to the EVMs' brain and, therefore, warranted an audit. He pointed out that there was no official audit report of the source code available in the public domain. Additionally, he mentioned that despite filing an RTI application to obtain this information, the Election Commission of India (ECI) was unable to provide it to him. In fact, he asserted that he had submitted three separate representations to the ECI, all of which went unanswered.

During the hearing, while expressing the dissatisfication, the CJI said–

"Every time we put out even a new application in the Supreme Court, we have to go through a security audit...Nothing can happen. Rest assured, there are standard guidelines..."

To this, the Cousel for petitioner questioned -

"What standard guidelines? They're not in public domain."

"If I start putting out source code of e-filing in public, who knows who'll be able to hack it."