Supreme Court judge Justice Ujjal Bhuyan has described the special intensive revision of electoral rolls as a process that disenfranchises millions of citizens and strikes at the heart of the Constitution.
Speaking at the moot court valedictory function at Nalsar University of Law in Hyderabad on Sunday, Justice Bhuyan said any exercise that results in the wholesale removal of names from voter lists is intrinsically arbitrary. He rejected the justifications offered by the government and the Election Commission for the revision, which the Supreme Court had earlier upheld with modifications in the case of West Bengal rolls.
“No amount of whataboutery can justify it. It strikes at the very heart of Constitution. I would go to the extent of saying that it is a negation of the constitutional order which we have adopted under the Constitution,” he said.
Justice Bhuyan emphasised that a citizen’s right to vote is central to free and fair elections. He stated that, except in the case of a deceased voter, a name once entered in the electoral roll cannot be deleted without notice and a hearing. Detaching the right to vote or inclusion in the voters’ list from the identity of an Indian citizen, he said, would be like taking the soul out of the body.
The Constitution, he noted, does not create two classes of citizens those with voting rights and those without. Any process that leads to the large-scale disenfranchisement of citizens, turning them into citizens without voting rights in their own country, would violate Articles 326 and 14 of the Constitution and would be intrinsically arbitrary.
He linked the right to vote to India’s freedom struggle, describing it as a manifestation of the freedom achieved after prolonged struggle and sacrifice. Article 326, which provides for universal adult franchise, cannot be altered, he said. No authority can do so, and no court can condone it, because no one is above the Constitution.
Justice Bhuyan also praised the students of Nalsar for their boldness and courage.