The Supreme Court has issued a notice in a plea challenging Centre’s decision that allows the Election Commission to use Aadhaar database for updating the electoral roll.
Senior Advocate Shyam Divan, appearing on behalf of petitioner SG Vombatkere, told the SC on October 31 that the Aadhaar card be made mandatory only if some benefit of subsidy is sought. And if the individual does not hold the Aadhaar card, his right to vote should not be denied.
The SC was further told that a voter can submit an alternative proof only if he is not able to furnish the Aadhaar number.
The division bench of Justices SK Kaul and Abhay S. Oka issued a notice in the matter while saying there is a possibility that in certain tribal areas even the alternative documents may not be available.
The PIL also challenges the notifications issued under the Amendment Rules, 2022 by the Election Commission signalling the start of the exercise contemplated by the RP Act.
Arguing that the preparation of electoral roll is to be independently performed by the Election Commission under the constitutional scheme, the plea submits that the exercise sanctioned under the RP Act, Rules and the Notifications poses a major threat to the independence of the Election Commission insofar as it has made the function of the preparation of electoral rolls dependent on the processes and systems of Aadhaar/UIDAI that it has no control over.
“This threatens electoral democracy which is a basic feature of India’s constitution,” the plea submits.
It is further submitted that the proposed amendment seeks to mandate that people link their Aadhaar numbers to the electoral rolls.
“This proposed linkage would have a detrimental impact on people’s ability to exercise their constitutional and legal right to vote, as it is reasonably certain to cause mass disenfranchisement, through mass exclusions from voter rolls as people are removed from the voter list without due process…”, the petition states.
“Linking these two databases would also pose an unacceptable and unconstitutional privacy threat to eligible voters,” states the petition, leading to voter profiling, amongst other harms.
The PIL also submits that Aadhaar-ECI database linking compromises the secrecy of the vote which is fundamental to the free exercise of electoral choice.