Ahmedabad Times

The Supreme Courtroom on Wednesday upheld the validity of the particular intensive revision (SIR) carried out by the Election Fee of India (ECI), ruling that the train furthered the constitutional crucial of free and truthful elections and that the measures adopted by the ballot panel had been reputable, proportionate, and accompanied by enough procedural safeguards.

A bench comprising Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi held that the SIR undertaken beneath Article 324 of the Structure and Part 21(3) of the Illustration of the Folks Act, 1950, was neither opposite to the statutory framework governing electoral rolls nor an impermissible assumption of citizenship adjudication powers by the ECI.

Studying out the operative portion of the judgment, CJI Kant stated that the SIR was initiated as a result of “substantial modifications within the electoral rolls had occurred on account of demographic variations, urbanisation and large-scale migration” and was aimed toward safeguarding “the integrity of the electoral course of and guarantee free and truthful elections”.

The court docket stated that the ECI was empowered to undertake such a particular train and that the revision “breathes life into the constitutional mandate beneath Article 324 inside the exact statutory contours supplied by Part 21(3)”.

“We’re equally glad that the article sought to be achieved by the SIR bears a direct nexus to the constitutional purpose of free and truthful elections,” held the bench, including that free and truthful elections “essentially rely on the integrity, accuracy and credibility of the electoral rolls”.

Rejecting the principal problem mounted by the petitioners, the court docket held that the SIR train didn’t supplant the prevailing statutory framework beneath the Illustration of the Folks Act and the Registration of Electors Guidelines, 1960. “The impugned SIR doesn’t supplant the Illustration of the Folks Act and the Guidelines… Subsequently, it can’t be stated that the Fee has acted in extra of its statutory powers,” the bench famous.

The court docket dominated that the train glad the constitutional doctrine of proportionality and that the safeguards launched throughout implementation ensured equity in motion. “A course of that will initially seem exclusionary can, via acceptable safeguards, be rendered constitutionally compliant in execution,” it stated.

The bench held that the measures adopted by the fee bore a “cheap nexus” to the goals sought to be achieved and had been “not manifestly extreme”.

The ruling got here on a batch of petitions led by Affiliation for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and Folks’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), together with pleas filed by opposition leaders Manoj Kumar Jha, KC Venugopal, Mahua Moitra and political activist Yogendra Yadav, difficult the legality and operational framework of the SIR train initiated in Bihar and subsequently prolonged to a number of states and Union territories, together with West Bengal.

The petitioners argued that the timing and scale of the train, undertaken forward of meeting elections in a number of states, resulted in large-scale disenfranchisement and successfully transformed the ECI right into a citizenship verification authority with out statutory backing.

Additionally they contended that the SIR course of reversed the settled presumption recognised in Lal Babu Hussein v Electoral Registration Officer that an individual whose title already exists on the electoral roll is presumed to be an Indian citizen until confirmed in any other case by the state.

Rejecting this argument, the court docket held that the presumption in favour of current voters was rebuttable and didn’t create a blanket bar towards verification. “Calling upon electors to furnish supporting materials in the middle of such an train doesn’t quantity to negation of the presumption,” the bench stated.

The court docket clarified that whereas the ECI might look at citizenship questions for electoral functions, such scrutiny didn’t quantity to a remaining willpower of citizenship beneath the Citizenship Act.

“The Fee is empowered… to undertake a significant inquiry into citizenship for the restricted function of satisfying itself as to eligibility for inclusion within the electoral rolls. Such an inquiry doesn’t quantity to a willpower of citizenship within the strict sense,” it stated.

The court docket directed that wherever the fee shaped the view that an individual might not fulfill citizenship necessities, such circumstances should be referred inside 4 weeks to the competent authority beneath the Citizenship Act for adjudication.

“Any deletion effected on this floor shall subsequently stay topic to the result of adjudication by the suitable authority,” the court docket stated.

The court docket directed that individuals whose names might have been wrongly deleted on grounds of absence, regardless of persevering with to reside in Bihar, can be entitled to file representations earlier than the election authorities.

The judgment assumes main constitutional and political significance as a result of meeting elections in a number of states, together with West Bengal, have been carried out based mostly on revised electoral rolls ready following the SIR train.

By the point West Bengal voted in April this yr, over 9.1 million names, amounting to round 11.88% of the state’s pre-revision citizens, had been deleted from the rolls pursuant to the train, based on information positioned earlier than the court docket throughout hearings.

The SIR course of, first initiated in Bihar via a June 24, 2025, notification, required voters not traceable to the 2002 or 2003 electoral rolls to furnish documentary proof linking them to individuals current in these legacy rolls. The fee had initially prescribed 11 classes of acceptable paperwork earlier than the Supreme Courtroom directed the inclusion of Aadhaar throughout interim proceedings.

Senior advocates Kapil Sibal, Abhishek Manu Singhvi, Gopal Sankaranarayanan, and Raju Ramachandran appeared for the petitioners. Senior advocates Rakesh Dwivedi, Maninder Singh, and Dama Seshadri Naidu represented the ECI.