The Election Commission, which used 11.83 lakh EVMs in 9 lakh polling stations across the country during the general elections, cited endorsements from the Madras High Court, Bombay High Court, Karnataka High Court and Kerala High Court, as upheld by the Supreme Court, to point out that “it had a foolproof system in place”.

“The Commission has also been consulting a group of technical experts comprising Prof PV Indiresan and (IIT professors) Prof DT Sahani and Prof AK Agarwala regularly, on all EVM related technical issues.”

The EC, in its release, said that former Delhi Chief Secretary Omesh Saigal had “only met the Chief Election Commissioner” and that “he had not made any presentation before the poll panel”. Saigal, on the other hand, claimed “he was ready to make a presentation before the poll panel or its technical committee whenever he was asked to” as he had “found that rigging of EVMs was possible and that a programme written by a junior programmer showed that the final results could vary if the pre-programmed code number was keyed into the machine”.