| Government can’t delete names of 4m ‘doubtful Asom voters’ |
NEW DELHI Amid continuing violence in Asom, the federal government has told the Supreme Court that it would not be possible to delete names of 4 million doubtful voters from the state on the basis of their religious or linguistic profile as it would be unconstitutional.
The federal government rejected the allegation of NGO Assam Public Works that over 4 million illegal migrants from Bangladesh had got their names entered into the electoral rolls and they should forthwith be deported.
In an affidavit placed before a bench of justices P Sathasivam and Ranjan Gogoi on Thursday, the federal government assured the court that it was committed to weed out illegal migrants from the state.
The court, while taking on record the affidavit, posted the matter for further hearing to November 6.
“That the proposed modality suggested by the petitioner NGO to identify and delete alleged doubtful voters; from the voter list 2006 based on religious and linguistic profiling is prima facie illegal, arbitrary and violation of secular and democratic fabric of India.
“That the prayer made by the petitioner cannot be allowed as it violates the Constitution mandate,” the affidavit filed by the federal home ministry said.
The government said as a matter of policy it does not support any kind of illegal migration either into its territory or illegal immigration of its citizens to foreign territories.
“Curbing illegal migration into the country is a priority since it has serious security, economic and societal ramifications,” it said.
The government said it has been issuing instructions from time to time to all states and Union Territories on the need to detect and deport Bangladeshi nationals found to be staying in India.
The federal government, however, said it has developed a mechanism to identify the doubtful voters by listing their names in category “D” who are neither allowed to vote nor stand for any elections.
“Identification of persons with doubtful Indian nationality in the electoral rolls began with the intensive revision of electoral rolls in 1997, persons who could not provide evidence in favour of their Indian nationality at the time of verification were marked as “D” in the electoral rolls so as to indicate their doubtful/disputed nationality status and these cases were referred to the competent tribunal for determination of their nationality.
Agencies
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