Just two years later, in 1982, the Election Commission (ECI) announced that the machine would be used as a pilot project in 50 of the 84 polling stations in the Parur constituency during that year’s assembly elections in Kerala.
The central government did not approve the use of the machines, but the ECI used the powers given to them under article 324. This article gives the Election Commission the right to take decisions in its own way.
Congress reached court unhappy with the result
In the results declared on 20 May 1982, the Communist Party of India (CPI) defeated the Congress by 123 votes. The Communist Party received 30,450 votes, of which 19,182 were cast using EVMs.
Congress did not see its defeat and challenged the result in the trial court but, the court upheld the validity of voting through EVM and the election result. After this, Congress went to the Supreme Court and appealed there.
In the Supreme Court, a bench of Justices Murtaza, Fazal Ali, Appaji Varadarajan and Ranganath Mishra heard the case.
Supreme Court canceled the first EVM election
This appeal of Congress was rejected by the Supreme Court and the elections of the candidates held in Parur district of Kerala were cancelled. During a hearing related to this matter in 1984, the Supreme Court said that EVM machines cannot be used in elections without a law being made in the Parliament.
Because of this, EVM machines had to remain imprisoned in cold storage for 2 years. In 1989, the Representation of the People Act was finally passed in the Parliament and after investigation, the provision for use of EVM was added.
EVM’s return after a long time
Nearly a decade later, elections were held using EVMs in 16 assembly seats in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Delhi. In the year 1999, voting was also done through EVMs on 46 Lok Sabha seats.
In 2001, state elections in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Puducherry and West Bengal were conducted entirely using EVMs. By the 2004 Lok Sabha elections, EVMs had replaced ballot papers on all 543 seats and since then elections have been held using EVMs.
2024-04-27 12:15:06