Supreme Court seeks Centre and EC reply on biometric voter authentication PIL

Key facts

• The Supreme Court of India (SC) issued notice to the Election Commission of India (EC) and the Central Government on a PIL filed by Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay.
• The PIL requests creation of a nationwide fingerprint and iris biometrics database for voter authentication at polling booths to curb bogus, proxy and ghost voting.
• A bench comprising Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi stated that implementing biometric authentication is not feasible for the imminent elections but sought the respondents’ views for future parliamentary and assembly polls.
• The petitioner contended that current voter identification relies on voter ID cards and manual verification, which are prone to misuse because of outdated photographs, clerical errors and absence of real-time validation.