Move EC on linking of voter ID cards with Aadhaar, SC tells petitioner

The Supreme Court Friday said the issue of considering linking Voter ID cards with Aadhaar numbers to curtail bogus and duplicate voting in polls falls in the Election Commission's domain.

A bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices S Abdul Nazeer and Sanjiv Khanna, which declined to entertain the plea, said it will be open for the petitioner approaching the apex court again if it is not satisfied with the EC order.

"We do not entertain the public interest litigations at this stage. Instead we would ask the petitioners to move the Election Commission of India and thereafter the Election Commission will pass a reasoned order in the matter.

"If the petitioners are still aggrieved, it will be open for them to come to this court once again," the bench said and disposed of the petition.

Advocate and BJP leader Ashwini Upadhyay, who had filed the PIL, had sought a direction to the EC 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.

It also sought a direction to the Centre through the 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.

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.