EC can delete doubtful voters, cannot decide citizenship: Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of India ruled that while the Election Commission has the authority to remove names from voter lists due to citizenship doubts, it lacks the legal power to determine a person's citizenship status. The court emphasized that citizenship determination is the sole purview of the Union government.
Why it matters
This clarifies the legal boundaries of administrative bodies regarding citizenship and protects citizens from losing welfare benefits based on unverified voter list deletions.
NEW DELHI: Supreme Court on Friday sought responses from West Bengal and Election Commission to a PIL which alleged that the state govt was denying benefits of social welfare schemes, including ration, to people whose names were deleted from the voter list because of doubtful citizenship during special intensive revision (SIR).On a PIL by Prasenjit Bose, chairperson of WB Pradesh Congress Committee and convenor of Joint Forum against NRC, a bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana said EC had the constitutional power to delete a person's name from the voter list if his/her citizenship was doubtful."But EC cannot determine whether a person is a citizen of India or not. While dealing with SIR in Bihar and West Bengal, we had repeatedly said that EC is not the authority to decide a person's citizenship status," the bench said.
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