Why collecting info about under-18 not illegal

The High Court yesterday asked the chief election commissioner and secretary to explain in 10 days why the collection of information of people below 18 years of age should not be declared illegal.

Responding to a writ petition, the HC bench of Justice Moyeenul Islam Chowdhury and Justice Md Ashraful Kamal issued a rule on the legality over the violation of the constitution, Voter List Act 2009 and Voter-list Rules 2012.

Updating the electoral roll from July 24, the EC appointed enumerators to go door-to-door and for the first time start collecting information of people aged 15 years and above.

Bangladeshis aged 18 years and above are eligible to vote and the EC said information of those below 18 and above 15 was being collected in advance to prepare their national identity cards.

The petition was filed by Supreme Court lawyer ZI Khan Panna.

His lawyer Shahdeen Malik argued that updating the voter list means including the information of those who became 18 in previous years and the constitution and act limits the EC into adding those only.

Shahdeen said the EC was concerned with only voters and the annual update could not be done in advance incorporating information of minors.

Deputy Attorney General Motaher Hossain Sazu opposed the petition, saying under-18s were not being made voters and the EC was doing a preparatory work as a part of updating the voter list.

He told The Daily Star that there was no legal bar on the collection for the HC had not passed any stay order.