No question of Aadhaar being used to claim citizenship: Supreme Court

The order came from a bench of CJI Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and Vipul M Pancholi after the Calcutta HC CJ informed SC that though 294 serving and retired district judges and additional district judges have been assigned SIR work, they would take at least 80 days to scrutinise documents of 50 lakh voters even if each judicial officer decided 250 cases a day.

The bench allowed the Calcutta HC CJ to draft judicial officers in the state with three years’ experience for SIR work and said that if more additional hands are required to complete the task expeditiously, he could requisition similarly experienced judicial officers from neighbouring Jharkhand and Odisha.

Significantly, SC said EC will publish final voter list on Feb 28 containing the names of all those who have been verified. However, as the process of verifying the 50 lakh voters’ documents along with claims would take some time, EC would publish supplementary voter lists after Feb 28.

SC said the 11 documents notified by EC, as well as Class X exam admit card along with the marksheet, would be considered valid to claim inclusion in the voter list, while making clear yet again that Aadhaar would be used only for identification purposes.

“There is no question of Aadhaar being used to claim citizenship,” SC said, adding that only cases of voters who have submitted their documents by Feb 14 will be verified by the judicial officers while determining their claim for inclusion in the voter list.

Invoking its extraordinary powers under Article 142, the CJI-led bench said that the supplementary voter lists would be deemed to be part of the final list published on Feb 28.

SC asked EC to bear the expenses towards lodging and honorarium of the judicial officers who would be coming from Jharkhand and Odisha.

Advocate Ashwini Upadhyay told SC that most illegal migrants have Aadhaar cards that have been made in WB. He said the SC could give a direction to control and curb these fake Aadhaar cards.

The CJI said this may require a deeper probe, but this is not the time to do so. Justice Bagchi said the best way forward is for Upadhyay to make a representation to SG Tushar Mehta, who could in turn forward it to the Union govt for appropriate action.

Judges on SIR work get bomb threats

Hoax emails threatening suicide bomb attacks and RDX blasts were sent Tuesday to district judges supervising SIR verification work in Kolkata, West Burdwan, Hooghly and Murshidabad, prompting drills in at least six courts. Searches found nothing. Bengal Chief secretary Nandini Chakravorty termed the threat a hoax.

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