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The Hon’ble Bench of Kerala High Court comprising Justice V.Chitambaresh and Justice R. Narayana Pishardiproclaimed that lamination of identity card results in the destruction of its legality and authenticity. The Judges stated in response to an advocate who sought for modernization of voter’s identity cards of cooperative societies by lamination and barcode.
Joint Registrar, however, observed that lamination of identity cards does not comply with the statutory requirements. A plea challenging this observation was dismissed on the ground that neither the Rules for Co-operative Society nor any other provision provides for such lamination. Therefore, the plea is unconvincing even though the lamination may be handy, waterproof and tamper-proof as contended.
Hon’ble Justice Chitambareshshed light on the difficulty to ascertain the thickness, seal, embossment or any other identification marks that are used to check the authenticity of identity card if they are laminated to make it glossy and waterproof. The Judge observed that the lamination process would destroy the authenticity of the identity card, and it is hard to compare the signatures on the laminated cards with those in the register. Neither the financial institutions nor any foreign universities accept the laminated title deeds or certificates, and delamination process to strip a document of lamination is cumbersome and expensive.
Insofar as the barcodes are concerned, it is not unfair to expect the legislature to allow printing of barcode or make such necessary advancement in technology. However, it is essential to understand that barcodes would not serve any purpose if there are no barcode readers in all the polling stations, or if the polling officers are not well-acquainted with such technology.
Therefore, the court held that members of the cooperative society could not be permitted to vote with a laminated identity card and barcode. The court considered the case A.C.Jose vs. Sivan Pillai (1984) 2 SCC 656 wherein Electronic Voting Machines were disputed.In that case, the introduction of EVMs was a shocker to all the people, and the absence of provision to permit the use of EVMs by the Election Commission kept the EC to conduct elections through ballot papers. Subsequently, section 61A was inserted in the Representation of People Act, 1951 which permitted the use of EVMs by the Election Commission to record votes in an election.
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