SC declines plea for linking of Voter ID with Aadhaar

The Supreme Court on Friday declined to entertain a couple of PILs for a direction to link Voters Identity cards with Aadhaar, to check “the appalling effects” of bogus and duplicate voting during elections.

A bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices S Abdul Nazeer and Sanjiv Khanna asked petitioners advocate and BJP leader Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay and another petitioner Jaya Thakur to approach the Election Commission which will pass an appropriate order on the plea.

Senior advocate Vikas Singh, appearing for Upadhyay, said the EC was in agreement to the demand and it has to carry out an amendment to rules only to allow linking of voting to Aadhaar card.

The bench, however, said the petitioners can go to the poll panel and if unsatisfied, they can approach the court again.

In his plea, Upadhyay sought a direction to the Election Commission to take appropriate steps to link the election identity card of the citizens with their Aadhaar number to curtail fake, fabricated, and duplicate votes in spirit of Section 62 of the Representation of People Act,1951, which stated no person shall be entitled to be registered in the electoral roll for any constituency more than once.

The Election Commission can take appropriate steps to implement the ‘Aadhaar-based Election Voting System’ to ensure maximum participation of youth, he said.