"EC voter deletion isn’t citizenship denial": Supreme Court backs SIR

The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls conducted across several states in India, ruling that the exercise aligned with the Representation of the People Act and the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960. The court said the Election Commission’s decision to revise remained within its statutory mandate and advanced the constitutional principle of free and fair elections.

Delivering its verdict on petitions challenging the constitutionality of the SIR exercise, the court observed that merely because the process did not strictly adhere to every procedural modality, it could not be invalidated. The bench stated that the SIR process was not manifestly excessive and that the procedural safeguards adopted during the exercise were sufficient within the legal framework governing electoral roll verification.

The Supreme Court further clarified that the Election Commission is empowered to examine citizenship only for the limited purpose of inclusion in the electoral rolls. However, the court stated that deletion from voter lists by the Election Commission cannot amount to a final determination of citizenship status. In such cases, the Election Commission may refer matters to the competent authorities under the Citizenship Act for adjudication.

During the judgment, the court also stated that the SIR enquiry remains subject to judicial review. It observed that if voters fail to provide necessary documents required under the statutory framework, the Election Commission is entitled to exclude such names from the voter list in accordance with the law. The bench added that the documentation framework in the SIR process must follow a “calibrated balance” while maintaining a structured system for voter inclusion.

The Bihar SIR proceedings had earlier led to judicial interventions aimed at making the exercise more inclusive. One such intervention involved the inclusion of Aadhaar as an additional indicative document for identity and residence verification. The verdict is expected to influence future rounds of SIR exercises already initiated in several States, including West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Assam. Separately, the Election Commission informed that documents from 98.2% of electors in Bihar had already been received during the revision process.