New Delhi: There was a “citizenship screening exercise” with opposition parties accusing the head of Bihar’s electoral role and the EC denied the charge and saying that being a citizen was the primary criteria to be a voter, the Supreme Court on Thursday asked if the poll panel comes under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Ministry.When senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi for EC justified the decision of the pole panel to exclude Aadhaar as a valid document for electoral roll amendment, said that Aadhaar could not be accepted as proof of citizenship, a bench of Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia and Joymalya Bagchi did not give an issue, but “SC stated that EC Puring was nothing wrong through an intensive practice in the electoral roll to see that not on a non-nagent role. Senior advocate M Sinhi, who was present for the Congress and other opposition parties, said the EC was doing a citizenship screening exercise. He said that voters were considered citizens of the country in the list and this estimate could not be taken by EC.For RJD leader Manoj Jha, senior advocate Kapil Sibal resonated him, said that there was a process under the Citizenship Act, after which citizenship disputes were to be followed in deciding and a person who had participated in more than 10 elections since 2003, could not be doubted to not be a citizen without any evidence.He said that in 1995, SC ruling and guidelines in the Lal Babu Hussain case were not being chased by the EC. He said that SC had said that a person whose name was on the role and intended to remove it should be informed why a doubt arose regarding his situation as a citizen so that he was able to show that the base for doubt was ill.“Inquiries will keep in mind that the investigation is semi-judicial in nature, they should entertain all such evidence, documentary or otherwise, the concerned affected person can prefer to tender in evidence and disclose all such materials on which he proposes to keep Reliance, so that the person concerned has got a proper opportunity to re-create such evidence.
