Top court to hear plea on Aadhaar for voting

New Delhi, February 19 

The Supreme Court today said it would hear after four weeks a plea seeking implementation of an Aadhaar-based voting system in elections to curtail bogus and duplicate voting in the spirit of  the election law. The petition was filed before a Bench comprising Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra and Justices AM Khanwilkar and DY Chandrachud which kept the matter for hearing in March.

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

It wants 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 and ‘benami’ transactions. The plea alleges that duplicate voting is prevalent in the country as the present system has not been able to check booth-capturing and bogus voting.

“The current system is better, but not the best. Aadhaar-based voting system has more authentication of voters, better security of the 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 says. — PTI