SC Upholds Special Intensive Revision of Electoral Rolls as EC's Constitutional Duty

Source: The Hindu

Introduction 

The Supreme Court has upheld the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls as an exercise conducted by the Election Commission of India (ECI) in furtherance of its constitutional obligation to conduct free and fair elections. A Bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi held that the SIR bears a direct nexus to the constitutional goal of free and fair elections, which depend not merely on the mechanics of polling but equally on the integrity, accuracy, and purity of the electoral roll.

What is the Special Intensive Revision (SIR)? 

• The Special Intensive Revision is a large-scale exercise undertaken by the Election Commission to comprehensively update and purify electoral rolls. 
• It involves door-to-door verification, addition of eligible voters, deletion of deceased, duplicate, or shifted entries, and verification of citizenship as a condition for enrolment. 
• The Bihar SIR, which was the subject of this litigation, covered 51 crore voters across 12 States and Union Territories, including West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala. 
• The second phase of the SIR commenced even as a challenge to the exercise was pending before the Supreme Court. 
• The final Bihar electoral roll published on September 30 last year contained 7.42 crore electors, compared with 7.89 crore when the SIR was notified by the EC on June 24, 2025.

Why Was the SIR Challenged? 

• Petitioners contended that the SIR was a backdoor attempt to conduct citizenship screening in the name of "purifying" the electoral roll of aliens. 
• They argued that the SIR did not have an empirical foundation and that it caused widespread suffering through hardship and arbitrary exclusion. 
• The petitioners further contended that the SIR supplanted the Representation of the People Act (RP Act) or the Registration of Electors Rules of 1960.

Court's Observations 

• The Supreme Court dismissed the petitioners' view that the SIR was a citizenship screening exercise disguised as electoral roll revision. 
• The Bench held that the EC was well within its authority to verify citizenship to the limited extent of determining inclusion or exclusion from the electoral roll, observing: "Citizenship is a condition precedent for enrolment [in electoral rolls]. The EC, in the course of preparing or revising electoral rolls, is undoubtedly empowered to examine questions bearing upon citizenship." 
• The court found "cogent justifications" for the SIR, namely the passage of more than two decades since the last intensive revision, large-scale additions and deletions over that period, rapid urbanisation, migration, and the resulting possibility of repeated or defective entries. 
• It held that the electoral roll was not a static document and must evolve in response to changes in population, residence, and eligibility. 
• The court rejected the argument that the SIR caused suffering, finding that appropriate safeguards were in place or introduced to mitigate hardship and arbitrary exclusion — including the inclusion of Aadhaar as the 12th "indicative" document for citizenship verification, a direction to publish the complete list of approximately 65 lakh excluded electors in Bihar, and the active assistance of booth-level agents of political parties at the grassroot level. 
• The Commission's supervisory authority under Article 324 was described as a "continuous wellspring of power" encompassing every facet and stage of the electoral machinery to ensure the sanctity of the democratic process.

Key Directions Issued 

• The court directed the poll body to refer, within four weeks, the names of electors who were part of the 2003 electoral roll but were purged in the Bihar SIR on grounds of being non-citizens, to the Centre for adjudication by a competent authority under the Citizenship Act. 
• Persons domiciled in Bihar whose names may have been wrongly deleted on grounds of absence, death, duplication or shifting were held entitled to challenge the EC's decision before the courts. 
• Their names are to be restored to the rolls if they are found to be citizens before the next Vidhan Sabha or local body elections.

Article 324 of the COI 

• Article 324 of the Constitution vests the superintendence, direction, and control of the preparation of electoral rolls and the conduct of all elections to Parliament and State Legislatures in the Election Commission. 
• The Supreme Court held that the SIR breathed life into the constitutional mandate of Article 324 — the EC's power to conduct and supervise elections. 
• The court noted that Article 324 was a "continuous wellspring of power" encompassing every facet of the electoral machinery.

Conclusion 

The Supreme Court's judgment affirming the constitutionality of the Bihar SIR will have a significant impact on next rounds of SIR across the country. By holding that citizenship verification is a legitimate and constitutionally mandated function of the Election Commission, the court has drawn a clear line between electoral roll revision and citizenship screening. The ruling simultaneously affirms the EC's broad supervisory power under Article 324 while directing procedural safeguards to protect those wrongly excluded — balancing electoral integrity with individual rights.