Telangana to seek legal opinion on Family Register Certificate, says Shabbir Ali
Hyderabad: Advisor to the Telangana Government Mohammed Ali Shabbir said the State would seek legal opinion on the Election Commission of India’s decision not to accept the newly introduced Family Register Certificate for Special Intensive Revision verification.
Shabbir Ali said on Wednesday that the government respected the constitutional authority of the ECI. However, he said the reasoning behind the decision required careful legal examination.
He said Telangana would explore all legally permissible options to protect genuine voters from unnecessary hardship. Poor and vulnerable sections should not face avoidable difficulties during the SIR, he said.
The ECI issued its clarification on August 11 after the Telangana Chief Electoral Officer sought guidance on the new certificate.
The State introduced the FRC under G.O.Ms. No. 172, dated July 25, 2026. The ECI said authorities generated its particulars electronically from the Food Security Card database.
The Commission therefore treated the FRC as equivalent to a ration card. It said the certificate could not qualify as one of the designated documents for SIR verification.
Shabbir Ali questioned this position. He said information from a government database should not lose evidentiary value merely because the database originated from the ration card system.
Family Register Certificate raises questions over government records
He said ration cards were government-issued documents. Authorities issue them after a prescribed process and verification.
The Centre and State governments also rely on the ration card system to identify beneficiaries and provide foodgrains under statutory food-security programmes.
Shabbir Ali said there was a distinction between citizenship proof and supporting evidence. He said nobody was seeking to treat a ration card as conclusive proof of citizenship.
Instead, he said authentic government records relating to family, identity and residence could have appropriate evidentiary value alongside other material available to electoral authorities.
Shabbir Ali referred to the Supreme Court’s May 27, 2026 judgment upholding the Bihar SIR. He said the judgment recognised the ECI’s discretion to prescribe documents and evidentiary standards for electoral-roll verification.
Therefore, the Telangana Government would obtain expert legal advice on the scope available within the existing constitutional and statutory framework.
He also pointed to the ECI’s distinction between the new FRC and the earlier Family Member Certificate issued under a 2013 Revenue Department memo.
According to the ECI, the earlier certificate involved document cross-checking and local enquiry. It could continue to be accepted during SIR verification.
However, the Commission did not accord the same status to the new FRC because its particulars came from the Food Security Card database.
Telangana to examine alternative verification mechanisms
Shabbir Ali said the government would examine the implications of this distinction. It would also consider whether additional verification or an appropriate certification mechanism could address the ECI’s concerns.
He said such an approach could reduce the documentation burden on ordinary citizens while retaining verification standards.
“Our objective is very clear. No genuine voter should face exclusion merely because he or she is poor, elderly, has shifted residence, cannot locate decades-old records, or does not possess one particular document. Verification must certainly be rigorous, but it should also be practical, fair and accessible to ordinary people,” he said.
Shabbir Ali recalled that he had earlier submitted a representation to Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy. He had proposed a Permanent Residence Certificate system based on the Karnataka model.
The proposal sought to assist genuine residents facing documentation gaps during the SIR. He said the latest development reinforced the need to examine constitutionally and legally permissible mechanisms.
Such mechanisms could help genuine residents establish their eligibility without unnecessary hardship, he said.
Shabbir Ali said the Revanth Reddy government remained committed to protecting every eligible voter. At the same time, he said the government would respect the constitutional role of the Election Commission.
“The Telangana Government will not seek any dilution of genuine verification. Our effort will be to find a legally sustainable solution that makes verification easier for genuine citizens, especially the poor, while fully preserving the integrity of the electoral rolls,” Shabbir Ali said.