The Supreme Court on Wednesday held that electoral rolls “cannot remain static” and were bound to be revised, as it declined to accept arguments challenging the Election Commission of India’s (ECI) special intensive revision (SIR) of voter lists in poll-bound Bihar.
A bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi was hearing pleas filed by the NGO Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR) and opposition leaders from the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and Congress, who contended that the SIR had no basis in law and should be quashed.
Senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan, appearing for ADR, argued that the ECI had never conducted such an exercise before and lacked the authority to do so, saying the law only contemplated revisions for a constituency or part thereof — not wiping out and redoing the rolls for an entire state.
The bench, however, pointed to Section 21(3) of the Representation of the People Act, which allows the ECI to order a special revision “at any time” and “in such manner as it may think fit.” Justice Bagchi observed that this provision, coupled with Article 324 of the Constitution, gives the Commission residual discretion to tailor procedures for special revisions without ignoring existing rules.
“There is bound to be revision,” the bench noted. “Otherwise, how will the poll panel delete the names of those who are dead, migrated or shifted to other constituencies?”
Advocate Prashant Bhushan, also for ADR, alleged that the ECI had removed the search feature from the draft roll and withheld the list of 65 lakh deletions just a day after a press conference by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on alleged fake voters. The judges responded that while the law requires publication of the draft roll in the constituency office, they “would have liked it” to be on the website for wider access.
During the proceedings, the bench also remarked that the Bihar SIR appeared “voter friendly,” noting that electors could now submit 11 types of documents for enrolment compared to seven in previous summary revisions. While the petitioners argued that excluding Aadhaar was restrictive, the court said the broader document list was “actually inclusionary.”
The hearing will continue on Thursday. On August 12, the Supreme Court had backed the ECI’s stand that Aadhaar and voter ID cards are not conclusive proof of citizenship for inclusion in the rolls.
