Supreme Court judge Justice Ujjal Bhuyan said on Sunday that disenfranchising millions of Indian citizens is arbitrary and violates the Constitution. Speaking at NALSAR University, he noted, "No amount of whataboutery can justify it." He added that the law does not allow two classes of citizens, one with voting rights.
Supreme Court judge Justice Ujjal Bhuyan on Sunday said any process that disenfranchises millions of Indian citizens is intrinsically arbitrary and amounts to a negation of the constitutional order, adding that no amount of "whataboutery" can justify it, news agency PTI reported.
Speaking at an event at the NALSAR University of Law in Hyderabad, he said the Indian Constitution does not provide for two classes of citizens — one with voting rights and another without them.
Any process that leads to the wholesale disenfranchisement of Indian citizens, making them citizens without voting rights, would violate Articles 326 and 14 of the Constitution, he said.
"If any process results in disenfranchising millions and millions of Indian citizens making them second class citizens in their own country in the sense of being citizens without a voting right, such a process is intrinsically arbitrary. No amount of whataboutery can justify it," he said as quoted by news agency PTI.
"Such a process strikes at the very heart of the Constitution and he would go to the extent of saying that it is a negation of the Constitutional order which has been adopted based under the Constitution of India," he added.