Telangana SIR: Govt to seek legal opinion on EC's stance of FRC not being ID proof
Minority Affairs Advisor Mohammed Ali Shabbir says govt will explore legally permissible options to ease verification for genuine voters, especially poor and vulnerable sections
Hyderabad, Aug 13 (PTI) The Telangana government's Advisor on minority affairs Mohammed Ali Shabbir on Thursday said the state government would seek legal opinion on the Election Commission's clarification that the newly-introduced Family Register Certificate (FRC) would not be an ID proof for SIR.
Shabbir said the state government respects the constitutional authority of the Election Commission, but the reasoning equating the FRC with a ration card required careful legal examination.
The government would explore all legally permissible options to ensure that genuine voters, particularly poor and vulnerable sections, are not subjected to avoidable hardship during the SIR, he said in a statement.
"Ration cards are not casual or private documents. They are issued by the government after a prescribed process and verification," he said.
The Centre and state governments themselves rely upon the ration card system to identify crores of beneficiaries and provide foodgrains under statutory food-security programmes. Therefore, the underlying government database cannot simply be viewed with "suspicion" when the same state-authenticated information is used for electoral verification, he said.
"The Telangana Government will not seek any dilution of genuine verification. Our effort will be to find a legally sustainable solution that makes verification easier for genuine citizens, especially the poor, while fully preserving the integrity of the electoral rolls," Shabbir said.
Election authorities said on Wednesday that the Telangana government's Family Register Certificate will not be accepted as identity proof during the ongoing SIR of the electoral roll.
A senior official told PTI that the Election Commission has informed the Chief Electoral Officer's office that the Family Register Certificate would not be valid ID proof for the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.
Last month, the state government constituted a statewide electronic Telangana Family Register and introduced a facility to issue a Family Register Certificate through the MeeSeva platform.
According to a government order, the government decided to launch the Family Register to facilitate the delivery of citizen services, ensure uniformity in verifying family particulars, and provide a readily accessible record. PTI