Staff Reporter
The Supreme Court today allowed the Election Commission to proceed with its Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in poll-bound Bihar. In its observations, the Court noted that it holds a prima facie opinion that, in the interest of justice, the Election Commission should also consider accepting key identity documents such as Aadhaar, Ration Card, and Voter ID card during the ongoing revision process.
Aadhaar, ration cards, and an identity card issued by the Election Commission itself should be considered as valid documents to re-verify voters’ identities – a process that has been allowed to continue – ahead of the Bihar election this year, the Supreme Court observed Thursday.
“In our opinion it will be in the interest of justice if these three are included,” the court said.
The observation came after a high-stakes hearing over a ‘special intensive revision’ of the state’s electoral roll, an exercise criticised as “arbitrary” and “discriminatory” in forcing only voters registered after 2003 to to re-verify themselves and to do so without using common government IDs like the Aadhaar or even the poll panel’s own Electoral Photo Identity Card.
Approached by a clutch of petitioners – including the Association for Democratic Reforms and Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra, who said she feared a similar exercise before the election in Bengal next year – the court also asked three important questions of the poll panel.
These included asking the EC to explain which section of the law – the Representation of Peoples Act – allowed it to conduct this exercise. “There is either ‘summary revision’ or ‘intensive revision’. Where is ‘special intensive revision’?” the poll panel was asked.
The Court observed that revision of Electoral Rolls by the Election Commission in Bihar is within the mandate of the constitution, but has questioned the timing of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR). The court asked why the exercise is being connected to Bihar assembly elections and why it can not be done for the whole country irrespective of the elections. A bench of Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia and Justice Joymalya Bagchi has remarked that the poll body should have acted earlier on the matter if it was to check citizenship.
The petitioners have raised questions on the Commission’s exclusion of Aadhaar Card from the list of documents in the SIR. The poll body argued that the citizenship needs to be checked for being a voter in India and Aadhaar can not be used as proof of citizenship. On this, the Court remarked that the electoral body should have acted earlier if it was to check citizenship under the exercise. The Apex Court also added that the issue of citizenship is within the domain of the Ministry of Home Affairs.
On Monday, the Top Court had agreed to urgently list the batch of pleas against the Commission’s Special Intensive Revision in Bihar. Several petitions have been filed before the court claiming that if the poll body order directing on SIR is not set aside, it can arbitrarily and without due process disenfranchise lakhs of voters from electing their representatives.