New Delhi [India], April 13 (HBTV): The Supreme Court on Monday issued notices to the Election Commission of India (ECI), the Centre and state governments on a PIL seeking implementation of fingerprint, iris and facial recognition-based identification of voters at polling stations to prevent duplicate voting, impersonation and ghost voting.
A bench comprising Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi sought responses from the ECI and the government on the plea.
The bench observed that implementing such a system would require changes to election rules and involve a significant financial burden on the exchequer.
The court said the reliefs sought in the petition could not be considered for the upcoming elections. However, it said the issue of whether such a system should be adopted for future parliamentary or state elections required examination.
The petition was filed by advocate and social activist Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay under Article 32 of the Constitution. It raised concerns over continued instances of bribery, undue influence, impersonation, duplicate voting and ghost voting despite the safeguards currently in place.
The plea sought directions to the ECI to introduce fingerprint and iris-based biometric authentication at polling booths, particularly during impending Assembly elections, to ensure that only genuine voters cast ballots and that the principle of ‘one citizen, one vote’ is strictly enforced.
According to the petition, the present system of voter identification, based largely on voter ID cards and manual verification, is vulnerable to misuse because of outdated photographs, clerical errors and the absence of real-time validation.
It stated that biometric authentication, being unique and non-duplicable, would effectively eliminate impersonation and multiple voting.
The plea further said biometric verification could help address issues relating to migrant voters, duplicate entries in electoral rolls and ‘ghost voters’, while also creating a real-time audit trail to improve transparency and accountability in the electoral process.
(ANI)