00:00We begin this bulletin with breaking news coming in right now from the Supreme Court where the
00:09hearing of the SIR exercise is currently underway. It seems the Supreme Court has now
00:16backed the Election Commission's argument that Aadhaar cannot be used as a proof of citizenship.
00:25The Supreme Court has said that the Election Commission is correct in not accepting Aadhaar
00:31as proof. Justice Suleykanth has said this to Advocate Sibyl who is currently arguing this
00:38case and he has said that the Aadhaar cannot be accepted as conclusive proof. It has to be verified.
00:45This is a big statement coming in especially since it was the Supreme Court that had suggested
00:50that Aadhaar card should be added in the documents that could be accepted as proof. So big news
00:58right now from Supreme Court where the special intensive revision of electoral rolls of Bihar
01:07that hearing is underway and it seems now the Supreme Court has said that what Election Commission
01:13says about the Aadhaar card that it cannot be a conclusive proof of your citizenship is correct.
01:20Remember Aadhaar card is also issued to certain foreign citizens who are residing in India.
01:27It is proof of residence and now the Supreme Court is standing behind what the Election Commission said
01:36and says it has accepted the argument that Election Commission had put forward that it cannot be accepted
01:42as a proof of citizenship. Joining me now is India Today's Anisha Mathur. Anisha it was the Supreme
01:49Court that had made the suggestion that we should include some more documents which included the
01:54Aadhaar card but now it is siding with the Election Commission and saying that it is not a conclusive
02:02proof of citizenship. Do tell us more what is happening in the Supreme Court right now.
02:08So Anjali let's break this down into categories. The Supreme Court has earlier also accepted Aadhaar
02:15as the proof to be included in the voter lists. At the same time the court is clearly even today saying
02:22Aadhaar should be taken as the documentation while somebody is filling the form for the electoral rolls
02:31but it is not conclusive proof of citizenship. You can be allowed to submit your Aadhaar, you can be allowed to submit
02:38your voter EPIC card and Russian card but then somebody will have to verify if they are fake or not.
02:45That is where the comment from the court is coming in. Now as we speak this hearing has been going on for about
02:52a little more than an hour and a half now and what the petitioners have been arguing is twofold.
02:59First of all that the EC does not have the power to host this kind of exercise where they are effectively doing a citizenship test.
03:08Secondly that the procedure is not being followed by the Election Commission when they are taking these forms.
03:15The Supreme Court has asked a number of questions. Now remember when these hearings are going on,
03:21the Supreme Court does ask a lot of questions to figure out where the arguments will stand.
03:27And I am reading out the comment from the court. The court is questioning if today if I fill a form and
03:33attach an Aadhaar and a Rajan card then they will have to verify it. First let us see who are the people
03:40who have been excluded, who are the people who are entitled to get the information about who has been excluded
03:48from the voter list. Now the question really before the Supreme Court that is being pressed by the
03:53petitioners today is how exactly is the Election Commission excluding people without going through
04:00the entire process of citizenship verification and objections by a third party. Because remember
04:07according to the petitioners the representation of the people act clearly says nobody can be excluded
04:13unless that entire inquiry procedure and objection procedure has been gone into and the Election
04:18Commission is effectively excluding people without going through that procedure. That is where this
04:23entire argument lies and we will see how the argument develops further as the Supreme Court is hearing
04:30the matter. Thank you Anisha for all those details. So currently the hearing is underway and there are some
04:35important observations coming in and we'll keep reporting on it. But Anisha you know this hearing is key to the entire issue of SIR.
04:45If we look at it even the last time when the hearing was underway the court had a stand where it said that it should be
04:52very inclusive this entire exercise and it should be ensured that nobody is you know nobody's right to vote is taken away.
05:03So right now the arguments that are being put forward by the petitioners can you give us a little bit
05:10more information about it. What are they saying now especially since the roles were published.
05:18Anjali the petitioners have been saying pretty much the same legal arguments since the beginning that the
05:24roles that have been published especially now that we have information from the election commission that 65
05:30black people have been removed from the 2025 roles. What they are asking is on what basis are these people
05:38being removed. On what basis is the BLO conducting the investigation. First of all the major argument that
05:45they are raising by which senior advocate Kapil Sibhal and advocate Prashanthu Shun have both raised is that
05:51the BLOs have not gone door to door. They have not in fact conducted the survey exercise that is necessary
05:59where they have to go door to door where they have to ask the head of the family to certify who all are
06:05there in their households. That exercise according to the petitioners has not been done. According to the
06:11petitioners people who are still alive have been excluded as dead simply because they did not submit the form
06:18that has been issued by the election commission.
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