Supreme Court notice to Centre, EC & states on plea to implement finger, iris biometric system at polling stations

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday issued notice to the Election Commission, the Centre and states on a PIL by advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay seeking direction to implement a finger and Iris biometric identification system at polling stations in the elections to prevent electoral malpractices such as duplicate voting, impersonation, and ghost voting.

A bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi sought a response from the poll panel, the Union government and others upon hearing the petitioner.

The plea said that the injury to citizens was extremely large as bribery, undue influence, personation, duplicate voting and ghost voting still affects the purity and integrity of the electoral process.

It stated that free and fair elections formed part of the basic structure of the Constitution. Any gap in identity verification directly impacts the legitimacy of the electoral outcome. By introducing biometric validation, EC can significantly strengthen the integrity, accuracy of the election process, it contended.

"Therefore, to uphold the constitutional mandate of free and fair elections, the Election Commission may consider implementing Finger and Iris Biometric Authentication at polling booths in impending Assembly Elections. This may be implemented on the lines similar to the Aadhaar-Based Identification which has been recognised as a valid proof of identity under Section 23(4) of the RPA, 1950. The EC has plenary power to implement the biometric authentication," the plea stated.

The adoption of finger-iris biometric verification at polling booths in impending elections would ensure that only genuine and duly registered electors are permitted to cast their votes, thereby effectively preventing Bribery, undue influence, personation, duplicate and ghost voting, the petition said.

"The EC by using its plenary power under Article 324 may implement finger and iris based biometric authentication to strengthen voter identification and eliminate Bribery, Undue influence, personation, duplicate and ghost voting. Biometric identifiers are unique and incapable of being fabricated, thereby ensuring the principle of 'One Citizen, One Vote' in its truest sense. This would guarantee that each registered elector casts only a single vote," the plea stated.

The petitioner said that a transparent electoral process is essential for maintaining trust in democratic institutions. The introduction of Finger-Iris biometric verification would remove ambiguity in identification and provide an objective, tamper-proof mechanism, thereby enhancing public faith in fairness of elections.

"A biometric-based authentication inherently provides a mechanism for creating secure and verifiable digital records of voter authentication at the time of voting. Such records, while maintaining voter secrecy, can serve as an audit trail to verify that due process was followed at each polling station. This enhances institutional accountability and enables EC to conduct post-election audits more efficiently and reliably. Existence of verifiable data also serves as a deterrent to malpractice, as any irregularity in the process can be traced and examined," his plea said.