Supreme Court Says Bihar Voter List Update Could Be Voided Under Certain Conditions
In today’s hearing they highlighted that the EC - which asked for documents (except the Aadhaar and its own ID card) to prove citizenship- does not have the power to decide that.
The results of the Election Commission’s continuing ‘special intensive Bihar voter roll revision can be disregarded - as late as September, two months before the Assembly election is due in the eastern state - if illegality is established in the exercise, the Supreme Court said Tuesday afternoon.
The assurance came in response to arguments regarding the authority of the Election Commission - which demanded 11 documents from residents of Bihar to voter list revision India themselves as voters- to prove that fact.
The EC had previously stated that Supreme Court Bihar voters could not use commonly accepted government IDs, such as the Aadhaar (and its own identity card), to prove citizenship and undergo another verification, because they were only rudimentary indicators of identity. In addition, the election commission said, these documents were easier to fake than the ones on the approved list.
The petitioners claimed that when the top court today made the remark that the poll body was correct in saying that an Aadhaar card is not conclusive proof of citizenship, they were not arguing that. They said that their argument was on the illegality of the Bihar electoral list case and doubts regarding the poll body’s power to determine citizenship.
Senior advocate Abhishek Singhvi, who appeared for Rashtriya Janata Dal MP Manoj Kumar Jha, said that the question is - ‘does the EC have the authority to establish citizenship in the first place?’ The right to grant (or revoke) citizenship lies with the Home Ministry, he noted.
“They (i.e., the Election Commission) say that Aadhaar is not enough to determine citizenship… but they don’t have the authority to decide citizenship…” Mr Singhvi said.
“Supreme court voter roll ruling need to ascertain identity … you cannot have a system where citizenship is doubted for five crore people. Citizenship is typically presumed to be valid until the government initiates official action to rescind it. The Election Commission was not intended to be an enforcer or verifier of citizenship status.
