View: Stalled session of Parliament, Opposition protest and bill to link Aadhaar with voter ID

A central argument over the passage of this Bill is the manner in which it was enacted. Between December 21 and 22, the proposed legislation was introduced and passed in a matter of 90-odd minutes by both the Houses without much debate.

The Opposition arguments varied from the legislative competence (in the Lok Sabha) to take this measure, to send the Bill to a Select Committee (in the Rajya Sabha) with the government insisting deliberations on the matter were held of the Standing Committee of jurisdiction that recommended such linking.

The latest report of the Standing Committee of Personnel, Public Grievances, Law and Justice submitted during March this year reiterated the recommendation that the government may undertake appropriate action for the purpose of linking unique Aadhaar Card number with Voter I-Card to purify the electoral roll. This forms part of the report when the panel was examining the Demands for Grants of the Ministries concerned in the 2021-22 Budget.

It was in the previous 101st Report on Demands for Grants that the Committee sought the opinion of the Election Commission of India (ECI) whose officials appeared before the panel. A top ECI official submitted that the proposal of linkage of Aadhaar with Electors Photo Identity Card is in consonance with the Government of India and hoped that it would check electoral malpractices.

Earlier, between February and August 2015 the ECI ran a pilot project "National Electoral Roll Purification and Authentication Programme" to weed out voters and relied on the unique ID Aadhaar Number. It linked 32 crore voters who submitted the required authentication on their own volition. The programme was suspended in August that year after former Justice KS Puttaswamy challenged the validity of the Aadhaar Act in the Supreme Court.

Subsequently, the ECI approached the Law Ministry for appropriate legislation to link the Unique ID Number provided by Aadhaar with a voter identity card for cleaning electoral rolls and removing multiple entries in them.

That law is required in order to address concerns over privacy and allow the ECI to work on it was pending and a recommendation by a Committee was also there. It is a normal practice to refer Bills to Committees of jurisdiction for detailed examination. While there is no doubt the Law and Justice panel took this up, it was part of a set of issues under the overarching Budget proposals where officials of ECI appeared to present their side.

On the other hand, when a Bill is referred to a Committee, it works with a fine-tooth comb and examines various faces, inviting suggestions as required. It discusses provisions with various stakeholders in what can be described to obtain a 360-degree view. The recommendations so arrived at the conclusion, either unanimous or with dissent, are then presented to Parliament for its consideration. The government may bring about amendments based on recommendations it accepts and the process allows lawmakers to draw upon views to take the process forward. Debate and discussions assist in fine-tuning the proposed legislation. The recent agitation over the three contentious farm laws can be sighted as a case in point.

The swiftness with which the government moved on this is now being questioned. The recommendation of the panel is nearly two years old and was reiterated this March. As for the other two entries, allowing new voters enrollment four times a year instead of January each year and making proxy voter gender-neutral are welcome.

The existing law of yearly updating of rolls would not have affected the upcoming polls to five Assemblies early next year, for the ECI carries out summary revision of rolls in poll-bound states to enroll all eligible voters.

Weeding out bogus votes is a welcome measure yet the apprehension of overzealous officials insisting on Aadhaar either at the time of enrolment of new voters or seeking authentication from genuine voters cannot be discounted.

Cleaning up is a painstaking task requiring utmost diligence in order to ensure that no citizen is deprived of the right to exercise franchise. The application of Aaadhar around a time debate on data protection remains inconclusive adds up to this concern.