However, advocate Prashant Bhushan appearing for one of the petitioners said that the flash memory of Micro Control Units can be reprogrammed.
“We downloaded the what the micro control units contain. It has flash memory which is re-programmable and I also downloaded from wikipedia what is firmware. Firmware is a stored non volatile memory. We also went to the site of NXP. And this is what it says about the micro controllers. This micro controller has a flash memory also and to say that it is not re-programmable is incorrect. And that is what citizen commission also said after examining such machines all across the world,” he contended.
The Court then specifically asked the ECI about the same.
“Can it be re-programmed,” the Bench asked.
The ECI counsel made it clear that it cannot be.
“Not at all,” he said.
“Ok, so this is absolute,” the Court responded.
“If the VVPAT has a malicious program fed into then,” Bhushan asked.
“That argument we understood.. The flash memory which is there is not loaded with any software but symbols that is the standard.. now do not pronounce the judgment on that.. we have to examine that,” the Court replied.
“They are not saying flash memory cannot be programmed. If you are predisposed about a thought process then we cannot help you.. we are not here to change your thought process. They are saying quantum of flash memory is very low. It can store 1024 symbols. Not the software. They say that as far as micro controllers in the CU is concerned it is agnostic. It does not recognise the party or symbol. It knows the buttons,” the bench said.
Source: Barandbench
