New Delhi:

What is the Standard Operating Procedure for Electronic Voting Machines after polls are over, the Supreme Court asked today in response to a petition that sought data from the machines not be deleted even after the counting of votes is over. For now, do not delete any data from EVM nor reload any data, said a bench led by Chief Justice of India Sanjeev Khanna.

The Election Commission has to provide information to the court about the process of burning EVM memory and microcontroller after elections

“This is not adversarial,” said the Chief Justice. “If the losing candidate wants clarification, the engineer can give clarification that there has been no tampering,” he added.

The top court was told that engineers of BEL (Bharat Electronics Limited) had loaded dummy symbol and data in the EVMs and data of the original machine was cleared.

CJI Khanna questioned the poll body why the data was cleared and ordered that it ensure that EVM data is not deleted.

The court’s comments came while it was hearing a petition by the Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR), Haryana, and a group of Congress leaders. The petitions sought that the court directs the Commission to formulate policy for checking original burnt memory/microcontroller of EVM components.

The petition has also demanded that the burnt memory and microcontroller of EVM be verified by  engineers to prove that EVM has not been tampered with.

The next hearing will be held on March 17.

Representational image of a traffic signal in the foreground of the Bombay Stock Exchange on Dalal Street. File

Equity benchmark indices declined in early trade on Tuesday in line with weak trends from Asian markets and fresh foreign fund outflows.

The BSE Sensex declined 218.11 points to 73,787.83. The NSE Nifty dipped 97.45 points to 22,404.55.

Among the Sensex components, Nestle, Mahindra & Mahindra, Bajaj Finserv, Axis Bank, Hindustan Unilever and ICICI Bank were the major laggards.

Tata Steel, Power Grid, Tata Steel and Asian Paints were among the gainers.

In Asian markets, Seoul, Shanghai and Hong Kong were trading lower while Tokyo quoted in the positive territory.

Wall Street ended mostly higher on Monday.

Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) offloaded equities worth Rs 92.95 crore on Saturday, according to exchange data.

Global oil benchmark Brent crude declined 0.56% to $83.24 a barrel.

The BSE benchmark climbed 88.91 points or 0.12% to end at 74,005.94 in a special trading session on Saturday. The NSE Nifty advanced 35.90 points or 0.16% to 22,502.

The National Stock Exchange (NSE) and BSE conducted a special trading session in the equity and equity derivative segments on May 18 to check their preparedness for handling major disruptions or failures at the primary site.

Among individual stocks, Nestle India fell over 2%, walking back gains made in the previous session, as the shareholders of the local arm voted against a royalty hike to Swiss parent Nestle SA.

The KitKat chocolate maker was the top loser on the benchmark Nifty.

Bharat Electronics rose 9% to a record high after reporting a 30% jump in March-quarter profit.

Oil India rose about 4% to an all-time high after reporting a rise in fourth-quarter profit.

Markets were closed on May 20 due to the fifth phase of the Lok Sabha elections in Mumbai.