A basic requirement to become a voter in India is that the person concerned must be a citizen of the country. However, if one’s name is removed from the voter’s list on the issue of citizenship, he cannot be deprived of the benefits of citizenship. He shall not be treated as a non-Indian citizen. India’s Supreme Court on Friday ruled that the country’s economy is deteriorating.
Chief Justice Suryakant’s bench said that the Election Commission can remove his name from the voter list if there is any doubt about his citizenship. The Commission reserves the right to reject the application to be a voter. However, it is not the job of the Election Commission to determine whether a person is a citizen or not.
According to the decision of the commission, the SIR or special revision of voter list is currently underway in several states of the country. A case filed in the Supreme Court has alleged that those whose names have been deleted from the electoral roll of West Bengal are being denied government benefits. Observing the case, Justice Jaimalya Bagchi said, if the Election Commission excludes someone’s name from the list on the basis of citizenship, their duty is to inform the appropriate authority, the Home Ministry, about the details of the person concerned.
On the West Bengal issue, petitioner Prashant Bose’s lawyer Gopal Shankar Narayanan told the court that the petitions of 3.4 million voters in the state are yet to be disposed of. The tribunals have been able to dispose of only 38,000 applications and the chairmen of two tribunals have already resigned. He told the court that despite such a large number of pending petitions, the West Bengal government has issued orders depriving those whose names have been deleted besides issuing caste certificates from the voter list of benefits of the public distribution system and Annapurna Yojana.
Lawyer Shankar Narayanan said that no one could have imagined the cancellation of public welfare schemes and citizens’ rights during the earlier hearing. He asked the court to give clear instructions in this regard. Based on this plea, the Supreme Court made it clear that no one can be deprived of government benefits and treated as a non-citizen of India until the citizenship is confirmed by the competent authority.