If having photographs on election identity cards and electoral rolls defies religious tenets and betrays sentiments of a section of Muslim women, it is for them to decide whether to vote or not.
“If they are so religious, don’t vote,” a bench of chief justice KG Balakrishnan and justice Deepak Verma remarked on Friday. They were hearing an appeal by Tamil Nadu’s (TN’s) Ajmal Khan against the election commission’s (EC’s) mandate to carry photo identity cards for voting.
Khan also raised brows at EC publishing electoral rolls with photos of Muslim women.
“What these women would do if they were to contest elections,” the bench asked Khan’s counsel V Balaji, pointing out that during elections, posters carrying photographs of candidates are put up all over a constituency.
Balaji said it was against the tenets of Islam for a Muslim woman to get photographed without a veil (burqa). He argued that the Holy Quran laid down that Muslim women wear burqa and cover their faces.
The face of a Muslim woman can only be seen by her husband or close relatives, he said.
As such, he said, EC should not take photographs of Muslim women without veils or unveiled photographs should not be given to any other person.
“Such a law violates Article 25 of the Constitution that guarantees right to practice any religion of one’s choice,” the counsel said, seeking to unveil a constitutional issue hidden in the case.
Counsel for Tamil Nadu Election Commission Balaji Srinivasan said Ajmal Khan wanted to create confusion at the ground level.
He said the voter identity cards and electoral rolls he had objected to had been prepared in Puducherry, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and the rest of the country. Nowhere did Muslim women object to the EC order, Srinivasan said.
Moreover, Muslim women get photographed for passports, he said. In 2006, the Madras high court had dismissed Khan’s petition filed after EC started printing electoral rolls with photographs of voters for the Madurai Central assembly constituency.
