NEW DELHI: Election Commission told Supreme Court Tuesday that the Constitution has cast the authority and duty on it to assess a person’s Indian citizenship prior to inclusion in the electoral roll to ensure foreigners do not vote.Arguing before a bench of CJI Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi, EC, through senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi, repudiated petitioners’ assertion that determination of citizenship did not fall within the remit of the commission, and hence, only Aadhaar details would suffice for inclusion in the voters’ list during SIR in various states.
Effort to ensure no foreigner is included in electoral rolls: EC
Dwivedi traced the history of the “assessment of India citizenship” of voters for inclusion in electoral rolls to the Constituent Assembly debates and said the framers of the Constitution had unequivocally mandated EC to ensure that only Indian citizens were registered as voters.“It is evident that from its inception, the Constituent Assembly intended that authorities responsible for preparation of electoral rolls would enquire into citizenship and exclude those who were not citizens from the electoral rolls of constituencies, and later, EC was vested with plenary powers with respect to superintendence, direction, and control over all elections, as well as the power to verify the status of citizenship under Article 324 read with Article 326,” he said. Dwivedi said the Constitution is citizen-centric, and hence, insists that every elected representative and the heads of the three governing organs are citizens of India. It does not matter whether SIR detects one or hundreds of foreigners on state electoral rolls, he said and added that effort is to ensure no foreigner is included.On the validity of SIR, the counsel said elections cannot be free and fair unless electoral rolls are intensively revised from time to time. He said Article 324 of the Constitution envisaging “superintendence, direction and control of the preparation of electoral rolls” included the constitutional mandate to revise the voters’ lists, particularly before general elections. “The nature of the revisional exercise is left to the discretion of EC and would depend upon the prevalent circumstances,” Dwivedi said, adding that intensive revision of electoral rolls would consider death and migration, and inclusion of new voters.Countering petitioners’ plea that only the Centre was entitled to inquire into citizenship, Dwivedi said, “The commission’s power to assess citizenship flows from Articles 324 and 326 of the Constitutions, read with Section 16 of the Representation of the People Act 1950.”He said the Union govt alone had the power to terminate citizenship or declare someone as a foreigner. However, EC can exclude a person from the voters’ list on finding him to be not a citizen of India, he added. “Under the SIR exercise, the citizenship of an individual for the purposes of Citizenship Act, 1955 will not terminate on account of the fact that s/he is held to be ineligible for registration in the electoral rolls,” Dwivedi said.“In so far as the burden to prove citizenship is concerned, the necessary documents required to establish citizenship are within the special knowledge of the individual claiming to be a citizen of India,” EC said, thus casting the burden on the person seeking his inclusion in the electoral roll to prove his citizenship. Arguments would continue Thursday.
