Supreme Court notice on plea alleging voter profiling by EC

The Supreme Court on Wednesday issued notice on a plea alleging "voter profiling" by Election Commission of India by deploying an undisclosed software to link voter records to Aadhaar.

Orally observing that the issue raised is "important", a division bench comprising Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud and Justice P S Narasimha issued notice. The petition has been filed by Srinivas Kodali, an engineer from Hyderabad. He had earlier approached the Telangana High Court which had rejected the PIL.

The petitioner argued that the Election Commission of India has permitted state governments to access and make copies of voter records. The plea alleges that EC has created a surveillance.

"Sensitive information about voters including religion, caste, tribe, ethnicity, language, records of entitlement, income, and medical history is now linked to voter information", the plea argues. It adds that this was done in absence of any valid law to use algorithms as an aid or substitute for verifying electoral rolls.