‘Needs to be examined’: Supreme Court seeks Centre, ECI response on biometric voting plea | India News
Supreme Court of India On Monday it agreed to examine an application to implement finger and iris-based biometric identification at polling stations to prevent duplicate and fake voting.A bench headed by Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Jaimalya Bagchi issued a notice to the Centre, Election Commission of IndiaAnd several states, seeking their feedback on the matter.However, the court made it clear that such a system cannot be introduced for ongoing state assembly elections.
Court examines proposals for future elections
“It needs to be examined whether such avenues should be pursued before the forthcoming Parliament elections and/or state assembly elections,” the bench observed while issuing the notice, news agency PTI reported.The petition, filed by advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay, called for biometric verification system at polling stations to prevent electoral irregularities like impersonation and fake voting.The petition argued that issues such as “bribery, undue influence, impersonation, bogus voting and ghost voting” continue to affect the “purity and integrity of the electoral process”.The development comes amid an ongoing debate over electoral reforms, with the court now considering whether technological interventions such as biometric verification can be integrated into India’s voting process ahead of future elections.
