TN CPI comes out against President's SC reference, calls it unconstitutional
He termed the action 'unconstitutional' and 'detrimental to the federal spirit' of the country.
Mutharasan said that the Tamil Nadu government had already fought a legal battle in the Supreme Court against the delay in the assent of Bills by the Governor. He pointed out that the Supreme Court had, in its judgment, laid down clear guidelines on timeframes for constitutional authorities like Governors and the President to act on such Bills.
'Based on the Tamil Nadu government's petition, the Supreme Court pronounced a historic judgment setting deadlines for decision-making on state legislation. The verdict was welcomed across the nation as a significant step toward preserving democratic governance. It is, therefore, surprising and inexplicable that the President has now referred 14 questions to the apex court seeking clarity on the same issue,' he said.
Mutharasan alleged that the move was politically motivated and influenced by the Union government.
'It is evident that the Union government is guiding the President to make this reference, which directly undermines the Supreme Court's authority and disrupts the federal balance,' he said.
Calling the act a clear violation of the Constitution, Mutharasan warned that it could set a dangerous precedent. He urged all democratic forces across the country to unite and oppose such actions.
'This is not just a legal or political issue - it is a threat to our constitutional democracy. People's movements must be built to resist such attempts that weaken the rights of state governments and the voice of the people,' he added.
Mutharasan's remarks come amid growing criticism from opposition parties over the Centre's alleged attempts to centralise power through gubernatorial offices.
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The Hindu
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'Objectionable' cartoons on PM Modi, RSS: Freedom of speech, expression abused, says Supreme Court
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The Print
24 minutes ago
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Anti-sacrilege bill likely to tabled in Punjab Assembly
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The Print
27 minutes ago
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No legal, valid ‘citizenship' document that's issued—how it puts big question mark on ECI's Bihar exercise
The special intensive revision in Bihar involves an indicative list of 11 documents provided by the ECI to be submitted by eligible voters. Several petitioners before the Supreme Court have objected to the non-inclusion of documents like Aadhaar and voter ID in the list of acceptable documents. The last such intensive revision was carried out in the state in 2003. In its order directing the revision last month, the ECI had cited Article 326 of the Constitution, according to which elections to the Lok Sabha and legislative assemblies shall be on the basis of adult suffrage. This provision says, 'Every person who is a citizen of India and who is not less than eighteen years of age…shall be entitled to be registered as a voter at any such election.' New Delhi: The Election Commission of India's special intensive revision of electoral rolls in Bihar has raised several questions over the scope of the exercise, and the impact that it may have on the citizens' right to vote. While the petitions challenging the ECI's revision were being heard by the apex court Thursday, the poll body asserted that Aadhaar cannot be accepted as a proof of citizenship. Courts have, in the past, also ruled the same with respect to Aadhaar. So, is there a specific document issued under Citizenship Act, 1955, specifically certifying Indian citizenship? Experts say there isn't. Former election commissioner Ashok Lavasa told ThePrint that there is no clear document issued under the Citizenship Act, certifying that a person is a citizen. This means that while there are documents like the passport, which may serve as proof of a person being an Indian citizen, there isn't a document certifying such citizenship exclusively under the 1955 law. A lawyer familiar with the petitions challenging the revision of electoral rolls in Bihar explained, 'All the documents that they are asking for are going to show only the date and place of birth. Through that, you may extrapolate and say—okay, you're a citizen. But none of the documents, except the passport, is proof of citizenship. None of the others are indicative of citizenship at all.' The lawyer further told ThePrint that there is no document in India, which is a proof of citizenship per se, like a national citizenship card. 'The only document which is proof of citizenship in that sense is the passport, and the proof of citizenship in passport is ancillary to its main purpose, which is that it is a travel document for an Indian citizenship. And because it is such a travel document only for Indian citizens, it is considered a proof of citizenship, but it is not per se a proof only of citizenship.' Also Read: SC invokes 'document starvation' to suggest EC accept Aadhaar for special roll revision in Bihar What is a 'citizenship' proof? Citizenship in India is determined by the Citizenship Act, 1955, which lists down different methods of acquiring Indian citizenship—by birth, by descent, by registration, and by naturalisation. While citizenship by descent is for a person born outside India, citizenship by registration is for people including those of Indian origin, or those married to an Indian citizen. Citizenship by naturalisation is for foreigners. 'There is nothing called a 'citizenship certificate' for those who are citizens of India since the commencement of the Constitution or their descendants. There is also no stand-alone document for Indian citizens to prove their citizenship,' Guwahati-based lawyer Aman Wadud, who has worked on citizenship cases, told ThePrint. 'The group of people who have 'citizenship certificate' are those who get Indian citizenship by naturalisation, by registration, by descent, and those who have been granted citizenship under the Citizenship (Amendment) Act.' The 1955 Act talks about such a certificate only in cases of citizenship by descent, naturalisation and registration. As for the documents required, the Citizenship Rules, 2009 only talk about specific applications for registration under Sections 4 (descent), 5 (registration) and 6 (naturalisation). No such specific application is required to be submitted in case of citizenship by birth. 'Not citizenship, only identity' That most of the documents on the list provided by the ECI may not be proof of citizenship was highlighted by the Supreme Court Thursday as well. In case of Bihar, the 11 acceptable documents listed by the ECI are birth certificate, passport, matriculation certification, permanent residence certificate issued by a state authority, forest rights certificate, caste certificate, National Register of Citizens or NRC (wherever it exists), family register prepared by state/local authorities, any land/house allotment certificate by the government, any identity card or pension payment order issued to a regular employee or pensioner of central government/state government/PSU, or any such identity card/certificate/document issued by the government/local authorities/banks/post office/LIC/PSUs prior to 1 July, 1987. During the hearing, senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi, appearing for the ECI, assured the court that the only purpose behind the exercise was to ensure that everyone who was eligible is on the electoral roll, and that it was looking at the aspects of citizenship and age. However, the court immediately pointed out, 'All the documents you have listed are related to identity.' Justice Joymalya Bagchi was quoted as saying, 'Why citizenship? Only identity. None of these illustrative documents that you listed or by themselves proof of citizenship.' This is why the petitioners have challenged the selection of documents by the ECI, alleging that the exercise is 'arbitrary, because the inclusions and the potential exclusion of documents do not make sense from the perspective of what they claim they are trying to do, that is to authenticate citizenship', the lawyer quoted earlier asserted, speaking to ThePrint. The Aadhaar dichotomy There seems to be a dichotomy between the ECI's resistance towards accepting Aadhaar for the revision in Bihar, and its past actions. ECI's manual on electoral rolls issued in March 2023 mentions the Aadhaar as an acceptable document to be attached with Form 6, the official application form used for new voter registration, or for those voters who may be shifting their residence from one constituency to another. It says that Aadhaar may be furnished, both as proof of age and proof of ordinary residence. Back in 2015, the commission had launched a nationwide comprehensive programme, National Electoral Roll Purification and Authentication Programme (NERPAP) with an objective of bringing an 'error-free and authenticated electoral roll' by linking EPIC (Electoral Photo Identity Card) data of electors with Aadhaar number, mobile number and e-mail. However, on 11 August that year, the Supreme Court passed an interim order in the petitions challenging the Aadhaar scheme, asserting that the production of an Aadhaar card would not be mandatory for obtaining any benefits, and that it would not be used for any purpose other than the PDS and LPG distribution schemes. Post this order, the poll body had halted its Aadhaar programme, directing its Electoral Officers to suspend all activities to collect and feed Aadhaar numbers of voters. 'Henceforth, no more collection of Aadhaar numbers from electors or feeding/seeding of collected Aadhaar data shall be done by any election authority or official connected with NERPAP,' the commission's directive had reportedly read. In 2021, on the ECI's recommendation, the government had amended the Representation of People Act, 1950, introducing a new form 6B to collect Aadhaar numbers from existing electors on voluntary basis for authentication of his entries in the electoral roll. Also Read: Congress, TMC oppose EC's 'special intensive revision' of electoral rolls in poll-bound Bihar What is ECI's mandate? The revision exercise in Bihar has triggered concerns over the commission indirectly entering the domain of determining citizenship of citizens through the revision of voter rolls. During the latest hearing in the top court in the case, senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for Rashtriya Janata Dal MP Manoj Kumar Jha, asserted that it is only the Government of India that can contest a person's citizenship, and not a 'small officer of the EC'. 'The Supreme Court has said in many cases that it is not the remit of the Election Commission to go into the citizenship aspect. That is creating a little problem here,' Former Lok Sabha secretary general and Constitutional expert P.D.T. Achary told ThePrint. 'The job of preparing or revising the voters list is with the ECI. When the ECI is preparing the list, the question is whether they have the power to go into the question of citizenship. How will they decide whether a person is a citizen of India or not? What are the guidelines or the documents which the ECI can ask for, that is not clear at all.' Achary pointed out that the Representation of Peoples Act does not deal with this aspect at all. 'That means, the Election Commission does not have the remit to decide this question, because it can only be decided by the Home Ministry, which administers the Citizenship Act,' he said. 'ECI is thinking about this only because Article 326 stipulates citizenship as one of the conditions of eligibility, and its question is genuine. But I don't know why they are thinking about it now, when all these years they have not been doing it. There is a presumption that a person is a citizen.' The inclusions and exclusions The 1995 Citizenship Act is administered by the Ministry of Home Affairs, which is tasked with framing the rules under the law and overseeing its implementation. During the hearing Thursday, when advocate Dwivedi asserted that Aadhaar isn't proof of citizenship, Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia shot back saying, 'But citizenship is an issue to be determined not by the Election Commission of India, but by the MHA.' Former EC Lavasa also points out that it is the MHA which is tasked with determining citizenship under the 1955 law. 'Every Act has its own administrative mechanism. That administrative mechanism is supposed to carry out the functions that it is responsible for,' he told ThePrint. Apart from exclusion of Aadhaar, Achary is also troubled by the fact that the commission isn't accepting voter ID cards as well. 'That is a very strange position to take, that you have given the voter identity card, which is given to a person who is enrolled as a voter, and that voter's list was prepared under the law and the Constitution. What question remains after that? What is the value of this document?' he remarked. Besides, the petitions filed by the top court point to several issues that emerge from each of the 11 documents. For instance, Rajya Sabha MP Jha's petition cites various government surveys and data to highlight that a negligible part of Bihar's population holds several of these documents, including birth certificate, passport, permanent residence certificate, and identity card/pension payment order issued to regular government employees. It also points out that at least two in this list—NRC and family register—do not apply to Bihar. How have revisions been done before? Intensive revisions have taken place ever since the first general elections in the country. For instance, the preparation of first electoral rolls began in 1947, well before the 1950 Act, or the establishment of the ECI. However, it was noticed that in the rolls used for the first elections, several names of women electors had to be deleted because they were enrolled as 'mother of' or 'wife of', instead of their proper names. To fix this, after the first election in 1952, the ECI had directed revision of electoral rolls in 1/5th of each state annually from 1952 to 1956 to finish the exercise before the Lok Sabha polls in 1957, and 1/3rd of each state annually from 1957 to 1961 to complete the exercise before the 1962 polls. Post this, the commission had said that summary revisions should be sufficient in 1962 and 1964, while intensive revision was conducted once again in 1965 in 40 percent of the country, and in 1966 in the remaining 60 percent areas. Lavasa explained that the approach in earlier intensive revision exercises was 'very simple'. 'In case of intensive revision, it was done as a fresh exercise. During house-to-house verification, the head of the family gave the names of the people who lived in the same house. The ERO would then put out a draft roll, and the expectation was that if a person had given false information, somebody would object to it,' he said. In the normal course also, if someone objects to a person's eligibility as a voter, it is on the objector to prove the claim that a voter is not eligible, unlike the current exercise in Bihar, where the burden of proof of citizenship has been placed on the already-enrolled voters. However, Lavasa asserted, the old 2003 order directing intensive revision should be made available to check how that exercise had been undertaken. 'Till that notification is available, it is difficult to say with certainty how it was done in 2003.' (Edited by Mannat Chugh) Also Read: 'Arbitrary, to be replicated in Bengal.' What pleas by ADR, Mahua challenging EC's Bihar exercise say
