EC open to linking Aadhaar with voter ID cards; informs consent to HC

The Election Commission informed the Madras High Court Friday it had no objection to linking Aadhaar with electoral rolls and voter ID card as sought in a public interest litigation to check bogus and invalid entries.

The commission, however, said a decision has to be taken keeping in view the recent Supreme Court order on the Centre's flagship Aadhaar scheme.

It also had to consider the expenses that would be incurred in case Aadhaar was linked, EC's counsel Niranjan Rajagopalan submitted before a bench comprising Justice S Manikumar and Justice P T Asha when the PIL came up for hearing.

After the submission, the bench on its own impleaded the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) and the Union Law and Home ministries in the petition and posted it to October 29 for further hearing.

Petitioner M L Ravi sought to link of Aadhaar with electoral rolls and voter IDs to check entry of repeat, multiple, illegal, invalid, false voters.

He submitted the manual door-to-door verification process for the preparation of electoral rolls by the EC resulted in errors.

He contended that to correct the errors, the EC seeks the support of all political parties which results in further errors and paves the way for corrupt practices.

The petitioner further submitted technicalities in the electoral law may disfranchise many potential voters who change their residence and may temporarily lose their vote unless the new address was registered in the electoral rolls.

Referring to the by-election to RK Nagar Assembly constituency here in December last year, he said there was a huge confusion because of allegations of additions and deletions of voter names.

The Supreme Court had on September 26 held the Aadhaar scheme as constitutionally valid but struck down some of its provisions, including its linking with bank accounts, mobile phones and school admissions.

(With inputs from agencies.)