NEW DELHI: SC on Monday sought responses from EC and the Centre on a PIL seeking the creation of a pan-India fingerprint and iris biometrics database for authentication at booth level to stop bogus, proxy, and ghost voters. A bench of CJI Surya Kant and justice Joymalya Bagchi told PIL petitioner Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay that it is not possible to implement the proposal during the ensuing elections, but views of the two respondents can be sought for the possibility of biometric authentication of voters in future parliamentary and assembly elections. The petitioner argued, “At present, voter identification is based on voter ID cards and manual verification, which are susceptible to misuse due to outdated photographs, clerical errors and lack of real-time validation. Biometric authentication would eliminate duplication/ghost voting.” TNN
