The Supreme Court of India has confirmed the Election Commission of India’s (ECI) stand that an Aadhaar card cannot be used as sole proof of Indian citizenship, stressing proper verification must be done. This critical judgment occurs in the backdrop of the current fracas over Bihar’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.

At the hearing, Justice Surya Kant, who was hearing the case, emphasised that while Aadhaar is an important identification document for numerous services, it does not in itself determine a holder’s nationality. “The EC is right to state Aadhaar cannot be taken as final evidence of citizenship. It has to be authenticated,” said Justice Kant to Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal, who represented the petitioners against the ECI’s method.

One of the main issues of debate in front of the top court was the ECI’s right to carry out such a large-scale voter verification exercise. Justice Kant said the whole issue would turn on whether the ECI had such inbuilt power. If the power existed, he added, there can be no question raised about the process of verification itself.

Arguments For Petitioners And ECI’s Defense

Senior Counsel Kapil Sibal, appearing for the petitioners, had submitted that all those born in India since 1950 are citizens. But he raised serious procedural irregularities in the ongoing SIR exercise, highlighting instances of even living persons being listed as deceased in electoral rolls and Booth Level Officers (BLOs) allegedly not doing their job properly.

Sibal also stated that the procedure adopted by the ECI can result in the en masse disqualification of voters, especially affecting those who cannot produce the necessary forms. He pointed out that voters already enrolled on the 2003 electoral rolls were being requested to resubmit new forms, and defaulting could lead to their deletion from the electoral rolls in the absence of a change of residence. He alleged that while 7.24 crore individuals had given forms, about 65 lakh names had been removed without authentic verification of death or migration, a fact the ECI had agreed to in an affidavit admitting no survey had justified these removals.

Supporting the petitioners’ arguments, Senior Advocate Gopal S. described the removal of 6.5 million names from the rolls as a case of “mass exclusion.”

On the other hand, Senior Advocate Rakesh Dwivedi, appearing for the Election Commission, explained that the existing list is actually a draft electoral roll. Admitting that small mistakes are unavoidable in such a massive exercise, he denied complaints that live persons were intentionally included as deceased, stating that any such mistakes can be corrected before the final roll is released.