CHENNAI: The
Madras high court on Friday ordered notice to the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) and the central government on a public interest litigation (PIL) seeking to link
Aadhaar with electoral rolls and voter identification card to curb electoral malpractices.
A division bench of Justice S Manikumar and Justice P T Asha suo motu impleaded the UIDAI and the Centre and directed them to file their responses in two weeks and posted the plea to October 29 for further hearing.
When the plea moved by M L Ravi -- president of Desiya Makkal Sakthi Katchi -- came up for hearing, counsel for the
Election Commission of India (ECI) Nirajan Rajagopalan submitted that the ECI had no objection to link Aadhaar with
voter ID but the latest Supreme Court judgement in connection with Aadhaar should be taken into consideration.
"Further we have to consider the expenses that are going to be incurred for the same," he added.
According to the petitioner, the ECI prepares the electoral rolls after a manual door-to-door check which leads to many errors. Further, to correct such errors, it seeks the support of all political parties which ends up in further errors and paves the way for corrupt practices.
Even in the recent
R K Nagar byelection, there were large scale confusion on the voters list due to allegations of malpractices in addition and deletion of voters, he said.
Adding that such issues could be checked by linking Aadhaar with voter ID, the petitioner wanted the court to direct the ECI to do so before the forthcoming general election.
Aadhaar cards
