Supreme Court Refuses to Stay Bihar Voter Verification Process, Hearing to Continue
Patna (The Uttam Hindu): The Supreme Court today heard the issue of revision of voter list just a few months before the elections in Bihar. During this, the court raised questions about the timing. 9 parties of the All India Alliance including Congress, RJD have demanded an immediate ban on the process of voter list verification. On the other hand, lawyer Ashwini Upadhyay has filed a petition saying that only Indian citizens should get the right to vote.
A bench of Supreme Court Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia and Justice Joymalya Bagchi is hearing the case. The bench said that there is nothing wrong in doing a special in-depth revision. This was done in 2003 as well, but the issue is why it was not done earlier. Why is this process being done just before the elections. To this, the Election Commission's lawyer replied that there is nothing wrong in this and amendments are made from time to time. He said that with time, revision of names in the voter list is necessary to include or remove them. Election Commission lawyer Rakesh Dwivedi asked that if the Election Commission does not have the right to amend the voter list, then who will do it? The Supreme Court said that it is not a question of why this is happening. The only thing is why it was not done earlier. The bench said that the exercise of special in-depth revision is an important issue, which is linked to the root of democracy, it is related to the right to vote. The Election Commission said that citizenship verification is necessary to become a voter in India under Article 326 of the Constitution.
During the hearing, the Supreme Court sought answers from the Election Commission on three issues - does it have the right to amend the voter list, the process adopted and when can this revision be done? Apart from this, the bench also raised the question of timing. The court said that if you have to check citizenship under the special intensive revision of the voter list in Bihar, then you should have taken steps earlier, now it is a bit late. On this, the Election Commission told the court that under Article 326 of the Constitution, citizenship verification is necessary to become a voter in India. The court of Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia and Justice Joymalya Bagchi said that why the issue of citizenship is being raised in the special revision of the voter list in Bihar. This is the jurisdiction of the Home Ministry. The Supreme Court questioned the Election Commission for not considering Aadhaar card in the list of documents in the special intensive revision of voter lists in Bihar.
The parties of the India Alliance, Congress, TMC, RJD, CPM, NCP (Sharad Pawar faction), CPI, Samajwadi Party, Shiv Sena (UBT) and Jharkhand Mukti Morcha have filed a petition and raised questions on the voter list verification. They claim that through this process the names of the poor and women can be removed from the voter list. Apart from this, two social workers Arshad Ajmal and Rupesh Kumar have also challenged the verification process. At the same time, lawyer Ashwini Upadhyay has filed a petition in support of the Election Commission. He has demanded that the Supreme Court should direct the Commission to do the verification in such a way that only Indian citizens remain in the voter list. Upadhyay claimed that due to illegal infiltration, the population structure has changed in 200 districts and 1500 tehsils of the country. His petition states that verification is necessary to remove infiltrators from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh from the voter list.