Assam D voter issue: SC accepts Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind plea

New Delhi: An important petition in connection with Assam D voter issue was presented in Supreme Court before a bench of Justice A K Goel and Justice Indu Malhotra. Advocate Fazal Ayyubi and senior advocate Kapil Sibal followed up the case on behalf of Jamiat Ulama-e-Hind. Later the bench accepted the petition for hearing and forwarded it to a bench comprising of Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice F R Nariman.

‘D voter’ is a category of voters in Assam where ‘D’ stands for ‘doubtful’. The citizenship rights, entitlements and privileges of a D voter are withheld until they prove their citizenship. Many who have certificates have also been put into D voter list. The number of such people is nearly 1.5 lakh.

History: In 1997, the Election Commission (EC) identified several hundred thousand people as D voters, most of them Muslims. Till October 2016, 6,21,688 people, mostly Muslim, were either branded as doubtful voters or reference cases were registered under The Foreigners Act 1946, resulting in them losing access to government-sponsored welfare schemes, the right to vote, and other civil and political rights granted to an Indian citizen. Since BJP came to power, the government’s actions have created more fear among the Muslims, There is a noticeable fear psychosis among the Muslims because of government’s fascist and anti-Muslim initiatives.

If the new orders are implemented a large number of people will fall into trouble hence the issue is moved to Supreme Court for justice which is taken up by 15 parties. Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind and Jamiat Ulama-i-Assam is assisting them in the case.