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Staying the Allahabad high court order allowing casting of votes without any identity card, the Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered that Election Commission's 18 alternative identity provisions to establish voter identity during the Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls would stay valid.
A three-judge bench, while staying the high court order, said the January 23 and February 7 orders of the EC detailing the alternative provisions would come into operation and those alone would be given effect to by all returning officers as well as presiding officers during the three-phase polling scheduled for February 14, 18 and 21.
Issuing notice to the two petitioners before the high court as also to the state government, the bench comprising Justice B N Kirpal, Justice Shivaraj V Patil and Justice B P Singh gave them two weeks time to file replies.
The high court on Monday had overruled the EC's January 23 and February seven orders specifying 18 identity provisions in addition to the election photo I-card, which would enable a voter to cast his ballot.
Beginning arguments for the Commission, senior advocate K K Venugopal and advocate S Muralidhar contended that the high court exceeded jurisdiction and the order 'has put the EC in an awkward position'.
Justice Kirpal observed that the Supreme Court has laid down the principle clearly that once the election notification was issued by the Commission, the courts have no jurisdiction to deal with any related matter.
Citing the danger of bogus voting and impersonation, Venugopal said that the Commission had ordered that 'the elector in the state of Uttar Pradesh can produce any one of 18 documents to establish his or her identity in case he or she has not been issued the EC photo I-cards or cannot produce his or her I-card for a valid reason.
"Despite this, the high court directed that an elector would be required to establish his identity only when it was challenged and permitted the elector to produce any other document to establish his or her identity," he said.
"This would frustrate the very purpose of the Election Commission of India requiring compulsory identification of every elector and specifying certain kinds of documents that can establish the identity of the elector and prevent bogus voting and impersonation," the Commission said in its Special Leave Petition challenging the high court order.
The 18 alternative identity documents specified by the Commission were passport, driving licence, service identity cards, bank/kissan/post office passbooks, ration cards issued prior to January 1, 2002, SC/ST/OBC certificates, student I-cards, property documents, arms licence, conductor licence, pension documents, ex-servicemen's widow/dependant certificate, railway/bus passes, handicap certificate, freedom fighter I-cards, I-cards issued to advocates, certificate of residence issued by Village Administrative Officers.
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