‘Needs to be examined’: Supreme Court seeks Centre, ECI response on biometric voting plea

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court of India on Monday agreed to examine a plea seeking the implementation of finger and iris-based biometric identification at polling stations to curb duplicate and fraudulent voting.A bench headed by Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi issued notices to the Centre, the Election Commission of India, and several states, seeking their responses on the matter.However, the court made it clear that such a measure cannot be introduced for the ongoing state Assembly elections.“Whether such a recourse deserves to be followed before the next parliamentary election and/or state assembly elections needs to be examined,” the bench observed while issuing notice, reported news agency PTI.The plea, filed by advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay, calls for biometric verification systems at polling booths to prevent electoral malpractices such as impersonation and duplicate voting.The petition argued that issues like “bribery, undue influence, personation, duplicate voting and ghost voting” continue to affect the “purity and integrity of the electoral process”.The development comes amid ongoing debates over electoral reforms, with the court now set to consider whether technological interventions like biometric verification can be integrated into India’s voting process ahead of future elections.