Supreme Court says EC acted within powers in SIR exercise

In a landmark 124-page judgment with far-reaching consequences for India’s electoral architecture, a bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant And Justice Joymalya Bagchi dismissed a batch of petitions challenging the validity of the SIR, which was first implemented in Bihar and later across the country.

The court held that the SIR “neither stands in direct conflict with the RP Act and the 1960 EC Rules, nor does it undermine the constitutional imperative of free and fair elections”, instead describing it as “an exercise in furtherance of section 21(3) of the RP Act, read with Article 324 of the Constitution, in furtherance of the very purpose which the Constitution is designed to protect.”

With decision, Supreme Court Effectively resolved the debate surrounding the legal validity of the SIR as well as defined the constitutional framework of the ECI’s powers to undertake large-scale electoral verification exercises in the future.

The decision came after assembly elections were held in the six areas where SIR elections were held and lakhs of names were removed. In Bengal, 9.1 million names were removed and 2.71 million people – placed under a controversial logical anomaly category – were disenfranchised due to the appeal process running out of time.

The judgment said, “The Commission, in pursuance of its constitutional mandate, is empowered to conduct a limited inquiry into citizenship for the purpose of satisfying itself as to eligibility for inclusion in the electoral roll. Such inquiry does not amount to a determination of citizenship in the true sense of the term, and any action taken in pursuance thereof is limited only to the electoral results.”

Also, the court clarified that any such finding by the ECI would not constitute a final conclusion on questions of citizenship citizenship law. The court said, “It affects the right of the person to be included in the electoral roll, and thereby his right to participate in the electoral process. However, it does not deprive a person of claims to citizenship, nor does it prevent the determination of that question by the competent authority under the Citizenship Act.”

Importantly, the court directed that the names of persons whose names were removed from the 2003 list on the grounds that they were suspected non-citizens should be referred by the ECI to the competent authority under the Citizenship Act, 1955, for a decision within four weeks.

The bench directed that the competent authority should decide such matters after notice and hearing, preferably before the next parliamentary, assembly or local body elections. If ultimately found to be citizens, such persons will be entitled to have their names reinstated in the electoral roll.

The petitioners had argued that Section 21(3), which provides for extraordinary constituency-specific amendments, cannot be extended to justify a statewide or nationwide re-verification exercise. The court, however, rejected this interpretation and held that the expression “any constituency” under section 21(3) could validly extend to “several” or “all” constituencies where the circumstances so require.

The court accepted the ECI’s justification that rapid urbanisation, migration, duplicate entries, non-reporting of deaths and demographic changes in more than two decades since the last intensive revision in 2003 are sufficient grounds for initiating the SIR.

“Restoration of the accuracy, completeness and integrity of the electoral rolls is not only legitimate but is integral to the constitutional mandate entrusted to the Commission,” the judgment said.

Acknowledging that inclusion in the voter list creates a presumption of validity, the bench clarified that such presumption is “rebuttable” and cannot serve as “a blanket restriction” on the powers of the ECI to carry out systemic electoral verification exercise.

The judgment said, “The nature of this presumption must be properly understood. At its core, it is an evidentiary presumption…Such a presumption cannot be extended to a rule of substantive law that prevents investigation.”

The bench further said that the intensive vetting process undertaken by the Commission is fundamentally different from the individual judicial proceedings contemplated in the Lal Babu Hussain case. “When the Commission undertakes such an exercise, it acts not as a mere adjudicator between competing claims, but as a constitutional authority discharging the duty of systemic oversight,” it noted.

The court accepted the ECI’s argument that a comprehensive statewide exercise was necessary as the identified flaws were systemic in nature and could not be addressed through piecemeal constituency-level amendments. “A targeted or constituency-specific approach may address individual irregularities, but would not be appropriate to address the structural deficiencies prevalent across the entire roll,” the bench said.

At the same time, the Court also acknowledged the concerns raised regarding documentation requirements, transparency and accessibility, particularly for economically vulnerable and migrant populations. It added that many of these concerns were addressed through interim directions issued by the Supreme Court during the pendency of the case.

These include expanding the list of acceptable documents to include Aadhaar cards, requiring publication of lists of excluded voters with reasons, deploying paralegal volunteers through legal services authorities and enabling political parties through booth level agents to assist voters in filing claims and objections. “The proportionality of a measure should ultimately be assessed not in the abstract, but by the way it is implemented,” it underlined.

The court also confirmed the ECI’s documentation regime, rejecting allegations that the exclusion of certain identity documents was arbitrary. “The classification of documents, including the exclusion of certain categories, is based on sensible criteria having direct bearing on the objective of ensuring the integrity of the electoral roll,” the judgment said.

The court further ruled that the deletion process under the SIR framework did not violate Rule 21A of the Registration of Voters Rules, 1960, noting that the safeguards of notice, interrogatories, hearings, speaking orders and appellate remedies are largely preserved within the amended framework. Maintaining the procedural framework adopted by the ECI, the bench said, “The form may differ, but the substance remains intact.”

ECI was represented by senior advocates Rakesh Dwivedi, Maninder Singh and Dama Sheshadri Naidu.