The Supreme Court on Monday issued a notice to the Election Commission of India (ECI), the Centre and states over a plea seeking to implement finger and iris biometric identification system at polling stations to prevent duplicate voting. The plea was filed by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay.
The notice was issued by a two-judge bench that included Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi. However, they made it clear that the plea can't be considered for the ongoing assembly elections in West Bengal Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Assam and the union territory (UT) of Puducherry.
"However, whether such a recourse deserves to be followed before the next parliamentary election and/or state assembly elections needs to be examined. Issue notice," the top court said, as reported by news agency PTI.
During the hearing, the bench had initially asked the petitioner to move to the Election Commission, but agreed to hear the matter after he said he was not talking about the ongoing assembly elections in four states and a union territory. The court remarked that it needs to be examined whether such a protocol could be followed for the next parliamentary elections or state polls.
The polling in Assam, Kerala and Puducherry was held in a single phase on April 9, while the voting in Tamil Nadu will be conducted on April 23. West Bengal will vote in two phases: April 23 and 29. The poll body for all the states will declare the results on May 4.
"The injury to citizens is extremely large as bribery, undue influence, personation, duplicate voting and ghost voting still affects the purity and integrity of the electoral process," Upadhyay had stated in his plea, as reported by PTI.
