The Supreme Court on Thursday directed the Election Commission to consider Aadhaar cards, voter I-cards and ration cards as identity proof for the special intensive revision of the electoral rolls in poll-bound Bihar.
The poll panel had excluded these three documents while stipulating 11 other categories of documents as ID proof for the exercise, prompting allegations from the Opposition and rights groups that the special intensive revision (SIR) could disenfranchise over 3 crore voters, particularly the marginalised.
The court, however, clarified that the directive to consider these three documents was not mandatory: the poll panel was free to disregard these documents in individual cases if it had strong reasons. But these reasons should be communicated to the person concerned.
“If you have good reason to discard, you are free to discard, but you must give reasons,” the bench of Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia and Justice Joymalya Bagchi said.
It said the larger issue raised in the batch of petitions, which have sought quashing of the SIR order as unconstitutional, “goes to the very root of democracy” and needed to be examined in depth.
It posted the next hearing to July 28. The commission must file its counter-affidavit within a week.
The interim directives were passed after initial resistance from the commission, which argued that “Aadhaar cannot be accepted as proof of citizenship”, prompting the bench to remark that citizenship is to be determined by the Union home ministry and not the poll panel.
The court will now examine the following three crucial questions:
- The Election Commission’s powers to undertake the SIR (although the court orally indicated that it did not see a problem with this);
- The procedure and manner in which the exercise is being undertaken;
- The timing of the exercise, including the time given for the preparation of draft electoral rolls, for seeking objections and for the preparation of the final rolls, which are very short since the Bihar elections are due in November.
Several Opposition parties and groups that advocate civil rights and democratic reforms have moved petitions challenging the commission’s June 24 order that notifiedthe SIR.
They have expressed fear that crores of poor and marginalised voters would be unable to produce the exclusive documents the commission has stipulated as ID proof, and would find themselves out of the voter list. The petitioners have highlighted the exclusion of Aadhaar and ration cards from the list.
Senior advocates Kapil Sibal and Abhishek Manu Singhvi were among those who represented thepetitioners; senior advocates Rakesh Dwivedi and Maninder Singh appeared for the Election Commission.
The order to consider Aadhaar cards, Electors Photo Identity Cards (EPICs) — issued by the poll panel itself — and ration cards was passed after Dwivedi gave an undertaking that the list of 11 documents mentioned by the commission was not exhaustive but only illustrative.
“…In view of (Dwivedi’s undertaking) it would be in the interests of justice that the commission considers three other documents namely Aadhaar, the voter ID card issued by the ECI, and ration cards as this would satisfy most of petitioners,” the court said.
It did not find fault with the poll panel undertaking the SIR, saying it was within the commission’s jurisdiction although the manner and timing of the exercise might be questioned.
“There is nothing wrong in the EC purging electoral rolls through an intensive exercise in order to see that non-citizens don’t remain on the electoral rolls. But if you decide only a couple of months before a proposed election…,” the bench remarked.
It rejected senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan’s argument that the poll panel’s decision to conduct the SIR was illegal.
It, however, questioned the logic of excluding Aadhaar since to obtain a caste certificate — included in the commission’s list of 11 documents — a person has to provide their Aadhaar card as ID proof.
The 11 categories of documents listed by the commission include a passport, birth certificate, school board or university educational certificate, government or PSU I-card or pension payment order, caste certificate, land or house allotment certificate, permanent residence certificate and a forest right certificate, among others.
Among the petitioners are the Association for Democratic Rights and the People’s Union for Civil Liberties. Another petition has been filed jointly by the Congress, Nationalist Congress Party, CPI, CPM, DMK, Samajwadi Party, Shiv Sena (Uddhav) and the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha.
Individuals like RJD parliamentarian Manoj Jha and Trinamool MP Mahua Moitra have also moved petitions against the poll panel’s notification.