Fact-Check: Did Supreme Court Ban the Use of EVMs During Elections? No!

The man in the video, advocate Mehmood Pracha, was talking about the apex's court decision against electoral bonds.

Fact-Check | This video is being shared with a false claim. EVMs have not been banned.

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

A video of a man addressing several people is being shared to claim that the Supreme Court has banned the use of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) in elections.

What is the claim?: Those sharing the video have uploaded it with a caption in Hindi that said, "EVM will be banned, big decision of Supreme Court, big victory for lawyers."

What about the video?: The 39 seconds-long video showed a man saying that people from BJP and RSS have committed crimes of electoral bonds, which has been declared as crime by the Supreme Court.

An archive of the post can be found here.

(Source: X(formerly Twitter)/Screenshot)

(More archives of similar claims can be found here and here.)

Are these claims true?: No, the Supreme Court has not banned EVMs.

The man in the video, who was identified as an advocate named Mehmood Pracha, was talking about the apex's court decision against the electoral bonds.

Hint in the viral video: The viral video carried a watermark that said "Voice News Network."

We noticed that the video carried a watermark.

(Source: Viral video/Screenshot/Altered by The Quint)

Finding the longer version of the video: We performed a keyword search and found an unverified YouTube channel named 'GM News Network'. On going through the entire channel, we found the longer version of the viral video.

• It was published on 15 February and was shared with a title that said, "Big shock before the elections, Supreme Court took a big decision, created panic in BJP."

• Team WebQoof went through the entire video, but we did not find any statements mentioning the ban of EVMs by the apex court.

• The video showed a man talking about the apex's court decision against electoral bonds.

• Towards the end, he spoke against EVMs and said that the members of 'EVM Hatao Sanyukt Morcha' are with the farmers.

• On searching further, we identified the person speaking in the viral video as Mehmood Pracha, who is an advocate.

Did Supreme Court say anything against EVMs?: We did not find any news reports or information that said that the apex court has said anything against EVMs.

• Previously, in October 2023, the court had refused to hear a plea that alleged irregularities in the Election Commission's scrutiny of EVMs.

• The apex court had rejected a petition in September 2023 which claimed that the EVMs were "controlled" by some companies.

PIB clarified on its X handle: The Press Information Bureau's fact-check handle, too, clarified that the Supreme Court has not banned the use of EVMs.

Conclusion: It is clear that the claim about the apex court banning the use of EVMs in elections is false.

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