Appeal court accepts Aadhaar card in first SIR appeal

Kolkata: “Motab Shaikh and Motab Herul are the same person”, the Appellate Tribunal ruled on April 5 in its first SIR appeal, accepting Congress’ Farakka candidate Adharka as proof of identity election committee No reason was provided for his exclusion.Retired Justice TS Sivagnanam, while ruling on Motab’s appeal, said the court was seeking specific reasons recorded by judicial officials for excluding Motab’s name. However, the European Commission did not provide any information, citing “technical reasons”.In an earlier Supreme Court case on the West Bengal SIR, Justice Joymalya Bagchi noted that the software contained a specific column aimed at recording the “reasons” for each voter’s inclusion or exclusion.Judge Budge said: “The architecture of the software provides a sphere of speech in which the relevant officer must provide reasons when deciding whether a logical difference should be removed or merit inclusion.”Senior counsel Dama Seshadri Naidu, representing the EC, assured the bench that the entire digital record would be made available to the appeal court.The dispute stems from discrepancies between Motab’s name on the 2002 electoral list and the first list after the SIR on December 16 last year.The court examined the entire record submitted to AERO, in which Motab’s Aadhaar card proved crucial. Although Aadhaar is not a document proving citizenship, it can serve as an identity document. In fact, after the SC judgment in the Bihar SIR case on September 8, 2025, Aadhaar was included by the EC as a “supporting” document.The tribunal applied this logic to Motab’s appeal, saying his Aadhaar reflected his name, Motab Shaikh. “This is sufficient to accept the appellant’s case,” it said.The court also recorded his passport (issued in 2018) and driving license (issued in 2001), both of which identified him as Motab Shaikh, son of Ejabul Shaikh.After the 2002 SIR, his name was recorded as “Motab Herul” instead of “Motab Shaikh” and the court also considered the corrected affidavit filed by him.In addition, he produced the birth certificates of his four children; the eldest son was born in 1993 and his name was recorded as “Motab Shaikh” on his certificate. Interestingly, all six of Motab’s siblings passed the SIR process and their names appeared on the poll list, while Mottab’s siblings were the only ones who were excluded.