The Calcutta High Court has directed the West Bengal State Election Commission to erase data stored on EVMs reserved from earlier elections, clearing a key logistical hurdle for municipal polls expected in November and December.
A division bench comprising Chief Justice Rabindra V. Ghuge and Justice Om Narayan Rai issued the direction after the commission approached the court over a shortage of electronic voting machines. The order excludes EVMs connected with three wards of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation and the Contai municipality.
The State Election Commission told the bench on Wednesday that it was prepared to conduct the municipal elections in November and December. It also informed the court that the shortage could be addressed if data from EVMs retained from previous elections was erased and the machines were made available for fresh use.
The commission had earlier said that several EVMs from past elections remained in storage because of litigation related to municipal polls. The court has now directed that the earlier data be removed to address the shortage. The report did not specify the total number of machines involved or the number of municipal bodies expected to hold elections.
The issue had been examined during the previous hearing on October 12, when the bench asked whether information from the EVMs involved in the cases could be stored on hard disks and whether the existing data had to be deleted before the machines were used in an election. The commission replied that transferring the information was possible.
The legal position differs for the Contai municipality and the three Kolkata wards. West Bengal Additional Advocate General Bilwadal Bhattacharya told the court that a Supreme Court stay applied only to the Contai municipality, while matters concerning the other municipalities remained under consideration before the High Court.
The court’s direction addresses the immediate operational question of whether machines held back because of earlier litigation can be returned to the election process after their stored data is erased. It does not, based on the information available in the report, announce the final election schedule or specify when the State Election Commission will issue polling notifications.
The next formal steps will depend on the commission’s election planning and the status of the cases involving the excluded EVMs. The commission’s statement that it is ready to conduct polls in November and December provides the current timetable indicated before the court, while the detailed schedule remains to be announced.
