Supreme Court to hear Randeep Surjewala's plea against linking of electoral roll data with Aadhaar tomorrow
India Today
The Supreme Court will tomorrow hear a PIL filed by Congress leader Randeep Singh Surjewala challenging the Election Law Amendment Act.
The Supreme Court will tomorrow hear a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by Congress leader Randeep Singh Surjewala challenging the Election Law Amendment Act, which enables linking of electoral roll data with Aadhaar ecosystem.
The Supreme Court bench comprising of Justice DY Chandrachud and Justice AS Bopanna will hear the case.
Surjewala has filed a PIL challenging the constitutional validity of Section 4 and 5 of the Election Law (Amendment) Act, 2021 which amends Section 23 and 28 of the Representation of People Act, 1950 and enables the linking of electoral roll data with the Aadhaar ecosystem.
The petition has challenged the amendment saying that it infringes upon the Fundamental Right of Privacy of citizens and is violative of right to equality.
While saying that the amendment has been brought purportedly for the purpose of curbing the menace of multiple enrollment of the same person in different places, the petition has argued that there clearly exists an equally effective alternative to do that.
According to the petitioner, the Supreme Court in its landmark verdict in case of Puttaswamy v. Union of India had held that the Right to Privacy, i.e., the right to keep the private data confidential and not be made available to the Government or any statutory body, except in certain circumstances, is a fundamental right guaranteed to each and every citizen.
It is the petitioner’s case that the impugned amendment which allows linking of electoral roll with the Aadhaar ecosystem and provides private data of the voters to a statutory authority, i.e., Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDIA) fails to clear the test of proportionality as laid down in Puttaswamy case.
