The Legal Status of Aadhaar in Voter Verification: A Deep Dive into the Supreme Court Debate
UPSC Relevance
Prelims: Indian Polity and Governance (Elections, Electoral Rolls, ECI, Supreme Court, Aadhaar - its legal status); Key Legislations (Representation of the People Act, 1950).
Mains:
General Studies Paper 2 (Polity & Governance): Salient features of the Representation of People’s Act; Powers, functions and responsibilities of various Constitutional Bodies (ECI, Judiciary); Important aspects of governance.
Key Highlights from the News
A new petition has been filed against the Supreme Court's previous order that accepted Aadhaar as the twelfth document for updating the voter list in Bihar.
The petitioner argued that since Aadhaar is not proof of citizenship, it could help foreign infiltrators gain entry into the voter list.
However, the court pointed out that the Representation of the People Act, 1950 itself contains a provision (part of the statute) allowing Aadhaar to be used to authenticate voter list information.
The court also observed that it is not right to exclude Aadhaar alone when many other documents approved by the Election Commission (e.g., land records) are not proof of citizenship.
The court indicated that the Election Commission legally knows how to identify citizens and infiltrators, and submitting Aadhaar alone does not grant voting rights.
The argument regarding the legality of Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in Bihar was adjourned to October 7.
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