SC to hear plea on massive voter deletion in AP, Telangana based on Aadhaar

The Supreme Court on Wednesday, December 15, sought responses from the Election Commission and others on a plea which alleged that the poll panel had deleted 46 lakh entries from electoral rolls in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana in 2015. During the 2018 Telangana Assembly elections, lakhs of voters in the state were unable to cast their votes as their names were missing from the electoral rolls. The voter deletions happened in the aftermath of the linking of Aadhaar with voter IDs under the National Electoral Roll Purification and Authentication Programme (NERPAP), which was halted by the Supreme Court in August 2015. An RTI response later revealed that the Telangana State Election Commission had used Aadhaar to delete nearly 55 lakh voters without proper notice or verification.

The plea in the Supreme Court challenged the April order passed by the Telangana High Court, which had said it did not find any reason to grant the reliefs sought in the Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed before it on the issue. It came up for hearing before a bench of Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and Justice PS Narasimha. "Issue notice," the bench said while agreeing to hear the matter. Besides the poll panel, the bench has sought responses from the Union government, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh and the respective state election commissions of both the states. It posted the matter for hearing after six weeks. 

The plea, filed in the apex court by Hyderabad resident Srinivas Kodali, alleged that in an effort to 'purify' electoral rolls, the EC in 2015 had suo motu deleted 46 lakh entries from the electoral rolls in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana and linked the electors photo identity card (EPIC) with Aadhaar. It said the poll panel had also seeded EPIC data with the state resident data hub and allowed the state governments to access and copy EPIC data.

The plea said the petitioner had filed a PIL before the high court apprehending that millions of unsuspecting voters would be unable to vote during the then upcoming state elections in December 2018. "Three years later, the high court dismissed the PIL ostensibly because it 'was filed in the year 2018 and much water has flown down the Ganges'," it claimed.

The plea alleged that the EC's action to 'purify' electoral rolls, using an automated process — from data received from Aadhaar and state governments — and without proper notice or consent from the voters is a "blatant infringement on the right to vote". It claimed that the high court had refused to consider that the EC deployed an "undisclosed software" to identify duplicate, dead and shifted voters.

"Likewise, the high court failed to consider that the ECI facilitated voter profiling by creating electronic linkages between voter records and sensitive personal data held in state-owned databases," the plea alleged. It claimed that the voting rights of millions of voters in the two states were deprived without due process and the poll panel's actions "threaten the sanctity and integrity of elections".

"In sum, the ECI abdicated its constitutional duty under Article 324 and statutory obligation under the Representation of the People Act, 1950 to prepare electoral rolls without the aid or assistance from the government or electronic databases under their control," the plea alleged.

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