The Supreme Court of India on Thursday questioned the timing of the Election Commission of India’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in poll-bound Bihar and the exclusion of Aadhaar from the verification process.
Hearing a batch of petitions filed against the ECI’s exercise by several Opposition leaders, non-profit NGOs and individual activists, a bench comprising Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia and Justice Joymalya Bagchi asked the commission why did it start the electoral rolls’ revision just two months before the assembly elections.
When the court asked the poll panel why Aadhaar was not acceptable, senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi, appearing on behalf of the Election Commission of India, said that Aadhaar Card cannot be used as proof of citizenship.
Dwivedi further pointed out that the Aadhaar Card only proves the identity of a person and that the Aadhaar Act 2017 has clearly stated that the document by itself was “not a proof of citizenship or domicile.”
On this, Justice Dhulia observed that citizenship is an issue to be determined not by the Election Commission of India, but by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs.
“We have powers under Article 326,” the counsel representing the poll panel replied.
The bench shot back, saying “There is nothing wrong in you purging electoral rolls through an intensive exercise in order to see that non-citizens don’t remain on the role. But if you decide only a couple of months before a proposed election….”
Petitions have been filed against the ECI’s controversial roll revision exercise by the MPs Mahua Moitra (Trinamool Congress), Manoj Kumar Jha (Rashtriya Janata Dal), leaders of major opposition parties – KC Venugopal (Indian National Congress), Supriya Sule (Nationalist Congress Party – SP), D Raja (Communist Part of India), Harinder Malik (Samajwadi Party. Arvind Sawant( Shiv Sena UBT), Sarfraz Ahmed (Jharkhand Mukti Morcha), Dipankar Bhattacharya ( Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation), Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, etc.
Besides, non-profit NGOs — Association for Democratic Reforms, People’s Union for Civil Liberties and activist Yogendra Yadav have also filed petitions against the exercise. Another PIL seeking revision of electoral rolls before every elections is also listed before the bench.