The Supreme Court (SC) issued notice to the Election Commission of India (ECI), the Centre, and the states on April 13 on a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) seeking mandatory fingerprint, iris, and facial recognition verification of voters before casting votes according to a report by Bar & Bench.
The bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi said the prayers cannot apply to ongoing state elections but asked ECI and the Centre to respond on whether the system should apply to future parliamentary or state polls.
The Court flagged on record that implementation requires amendments to existing rules and imposes significant financial burden on the exchequer.
What the PIL says: BJP politician and advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay filed the petition under Article 32, which allows citizens to approach the SC directly for enforcement of fundamental rights. Upadhyay submitted a representation to the Chief Election Commissioner on March 28, 2026, seeking the implementation of fingerprint and iris-based biometric identification at polling booths. After ECI took no action, he filed the PIL.
The petition argues that the current voter identification process, based on voter ID cards and manual verification, is vulnerable to misuse because of outdated photographs, clerical errors, and the absence of real-time validation.
It asks the Court to direct ECI to implement fingerprint and iris-based biometric authentication at polling booths under Article 324, which gives the ECI plenary powers over the conduct and supervision of elections. The petition contends that biometric authentication would eliminate ghost voting and create a real-time audit trail. It also points to Section 23(4) of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, inserted through the Election Laws (Amendment) Act, 2021, which authorises electoral registration officers to seek Aadhaar numbers from voters for identity verification. The petitioner argues that biometric verification at polling stations could be implemented on similar lines.
How the hearing went: The bench initially told Upadhyay to approach ECI first. Upadhyay clarified he was not seeking implementation for the five ongoing state elections. The bench agreed to examine the matter and directed, as reported by LiveLaw: “Prima facie, the nature of reliefs cannot be considered for the ensuing elections in some of the states. However, whether such a recourse deserves to be followed for the next parliamentary elections and/or elections of state legislatures needs to be examined.”
Notably, CJI Surya Kant did not question ECI’s authority to implement such a system. “Anything which is for fairness of elections, power can be traced out,” he remarked. The Court’s concern was feasibility and cost, not jurisdiction.
Why this matters: The PIL frames biometric verification as a solution to electoral fraud. However, India’s own pilots suggest that the technology may not yet be ready for deployment at this scale. The Telangana State Election Commission (TSEC) piloted facial recognition at 10 polling stations in 2020 and recorded a 78% accuracy rate. At that rate, roughly one in five voters could face authentication failures at polling booths. The PIL does not address what happens to a voter if the system rejects them. Neither did the TSEC when MediaNama sought clarification in 2020.
Prior attempts:
The legal vacuum: India currently lacks a dedicated law governing the state’s use of facial recognition technology. A private member’s Facial Recognition Technology (Regulation of Police Powers) Bill, 2023 has been pending in the Rajya Sabha since December 2023 with no legislative movement.
The Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Rules, 2025, notified in November 2025, are being implemented in phases. Most substantive obligations, including consent and security safeguards—will only come into force from May 2027. Until then, the Information Technology (IT) Act, 2000, continues to govern the privacy regime.
The PIL argues that Section 23(4) provides a legal basis for biometric verification at polling booths. However, this provision authorises Aadhaar-based identity verification for voter registration, not authentication at the point of voting. The Supreme Court has previously held that mandatory Aadhaar-based requirements must have explicit legislative backing and satisfy the test of proportionality. Bihar’s State Election Commission ignored this precedent.
The Telangana voter data leak shows what happens without a legal framework: data collected for elections gets repurposed by state departments and private firms with no accountability.
ECI and the Centre must now respond to a proposal that India’s own pilots have repeatedly failed to get right.
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