HYDERABAD: A division bench of Telangana High Court on Thursday directed the Election Commission of India (ECI) to file an affidavit explaining the software used in the preparation of voters’ list.
The bench refused to consider the plea of the petitioner for deletion of all Aadhaar data held by the ECI and the State Election Commissions of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.
The bench comprising Chief Justice TBN Radhakrishnan and Justice A Rajasheker Reddy was passing this order in the PIL filed by Srinivas Kodali, an engineer based in Hyderabad, complaining that the software used by the ECI in preparing and maintaining the voters’ list has led to deletion of about 27 lakh votes in Telangana and 19 lakh votes in AP.
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Petitioner’s counsel Arjun Reddy told the court that the State Election Commissions of AP and Telangana have misled the people of both the states by claiming that a large number of voters have been deleted on account of voters shifting from Telangana to AP after the State bifurcation.
He said that the data collected during “Samagra Kutumba” survey in Telangana was given to the ECI which contained information pertaining to citizen’s Aadhaar number, voter ID, residential address, PAN card details, mobile numbers and so on.
The said data was stored in the State Resident Data Hub (SRDH) and later given to the ECI for preparation of the voters’ list without the consent of the concerned people which was in violation of the Supreme Court direction that Aadhaar data could be used only for the purpose of subsidy schemes and not for any other purpose, he added and urged the Court to issue direction to the ECI to make the software and the algorithm used to be made public and for deletion of Aadhaar data held by the ECI.
Meanwhile, ECI standing counsel Avinash Desai submitted that the question of data being extended to any third party contrary to the provisions of law does not arise. The software used was meant to make corrections to the electoral rolls and that any deletions or additions to the voters list would be made only by the concerned electoral registration officer of the constituency, he added.