The Supreme Court on Thursday heard detailed arguments challenging the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, with senior advocates Abhishek Singhvi and Kapil Sibal accusing the poll body of exceeding its constitutional mandate and imposing unreasonable burdens on voters.
A bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi is examining whether the EC’s decision—under which voters are being asked to furnish multiple documents and undergo verification—amounts to substantive law-making reserved exclusively for Parliament and state legislatures.
Opening the arguments, Singhvi told the court that the Commission was acting “in the garb of conducting elections” to perform tasks that fall squarely within the legislative domain.
He argued that Article 324, which grants the EC superintendence over elections, must be read alongside Article 327, which empowers Parliament to frame election laws.
“The Commission cannot take upon itself purely legislative activities. It is not a third chamber in the law-making process. Being a constitutional body does not give it plenary and absolute power to legislate without reference to laws enacted by Parliament,” Singhvi said.
He criticised a form introduced in June 2025 that requires 11 to 12 documents for verification. “Where is this found in the rules? This form can only come through delegated legislation,” he argued, calling the SIR a “massification exercise” aimed at verifying citizenship, not routine voter roll maintenance.
Kapil Sibal, supporting the challenge, said the SIR regime effectively empowers booth level officers to decide matters of citizenship and mental competence, which the law entrusts to specialised authorities.
“Can a BLO judge if a person is of unsound mind? It is dangerous and unreasonable to ask a schoolteacher acting as a BLO to determine citizenship,” Sibal submitted.
He pointed to Section 16 of the Representation of the People Act, arguing that disqualification from an electoral roll is a statutory matter decided by the Ministry of Home Affairs (on citizenship) or by competent courts (on unsoundness of mind).
“You cannot shift the burden on the voter as though this were the Foreigners Act. How will one prove citizenship if their father never voted in 2003 or passed away earlier?” Sibal asked.
Responding to Sibal’s illustration, CJI Surya Kant observed, “If your father’s name is not there on the list and you too did not work on it, then perhaps you may have missed the bus. The only difference is that if your parents’ name is not in the 2003 list…”
When Singhvi described the EC’s jurisdictional claim as an “illusion of grandeur,” the bench noted that accepting his argument would mean the Commission “will never have the power to do this exercise” and stressed that SIR is not a routine update.
On Wednesday, the bench had said that the fact an SIR has not been conducted earlier cannot be a ground to invalidate it. The court noted that the EC has “inherent power to determine correctness of entry in Form 6”, the form used for voter registration.
The judges also reiterated that Aadhaar cannot serve as conclusive proof of citizenship, which is why it has been placed only among a list of permissible documents. Any deletion from the rolls, they noted, must be preceded by notice.
The matter is scheduled for further hearing on December 2, when the bench will continue examining the nature and limits of the Election Commission’s powers under the Constitution.
