The High Court yesterday issued a rule asking why the Election Commission’s move to collect information of minors for the updating the voter list should not be declared illegal.
The bench of Justice Moyeenul Islam Chowdhury and Justice Md Ashraful Kamal asked the chief election commissioner and the election commission secretary to explian as to why the decision should not be declared illegal as per section 11 of the Voter List Act 2009 and Rule 27 of the Voter List Rules 2012 within 10 days.
The order came in response to a writ petition filed on July 24 by Supreme Court lawyer ZI Khan Panna.
Shahdeen Malik and M Manjur Alam argued for the petitioner while Deputy Attorney General Md Motahar Hossain Saju represented the state.
The EC on July 24 decided to collect data of citizens aged 15 or above, for the first time, to update its database for 2015-2016. Earlier, data of only the 18-year-old or above were collected.
During the hearing, Shahdeen told the court that updating the voter list means inclusion of those who have reached the age of 18 in the previous years. He said that the EC must update the list annually or every year. They cannot update the list in advance, he added.
According to Article 122 of the constitution and section 11 of the Voter List Act 2009, the list will only include data of 18-year-old citizens or above and therefore, it is beyond the jurisdiction of the EC to collect information about citizens who are under 18, he added.
Deputy Attorney General Motaher Hossain Sazu said that the EC was not including the under-18 citizens as voters, rather it was a preparatory work as part of updating the voter list.
The commission has been saying that the minors will not be registered as voters, but once they turn 18 they will automatically be included in the electoral roll. The data of the minors will be collected in advance to process their personal data to prepare national identity (NID) cards.
