SC to hear plea for Aadhaar-based voting system implementation in 4 weeks

The Supreme Court on Monday said it will hear after four weeks a plea seeking implementation of an Aadhaar-based voting system in elections in order to curtail bogus and duplicate voting in the spirit of the election law. The petition was filed before a bench comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud which kept the matter for hearing in March.

The plea, filed by advocate and BJP leader Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay, has sought direction to the Election Commission of India to take appropriate steps to implement an 'Aadhaar based election voting system' to ensure maximum participation in election and curtail fake, bogus and duplicate voting in the spirit of section 17-18 of the Representation of People Act, 1950.

It sought a direction to the Centre through Ministry of Law and Justice to take appropriate steps to link movable and immovable property documents of citizens with their Aadhaar number to curb corruption, black money generation and 'benami' transactions. Direct the Election Commission of India to take appropriate steps to link the election identity card of the citizens with their Aadhaar number to curtail fake, fabricated, and duplicate votes, it said.

The plea alleged that duplicate voting was prevalent in the country as the current system has not been able to control booth capturing and bogus voting. "The current system is better but not the best. Aadhaar based election-voting system has more authentication of voters, better security of voting process, it can protect the voted data and most importantly, the voter can cast his vote from any corner of the country," the plea said.

The proposed Aadhaar-based voting system involves fingerprint of the voter which is saved in the government's database with an individual's Aadhaar number, the petition said.