New Delhi: The Supreme Court of India on Wednesday threw its weight behind the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter lists in Bihar, dismissing claims that the exercise was “anti-voter.”
A bench comprising Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi heard petitions challenging the SIR and clarified that the entire exercise is designed to strengthen voter verification rather than restrict access to voting.
Justice Bagchi observed that the SIR is “voter-friendly,” emphasizing that the process allows citizens multiple ways to prove their eligibility. “We get your exclusionary argument from Aadhaar. But the point on the number of documents is, in fact, voter-friendly and not against it. Look at the number of documents by which you can prove citizenship,” she stated, as reported by NDTV.
Justice Surya Kant added that the procedure could have been anti-voter if all 11 documents were mandatory, but clarified that voters are required to present only one document out of the 11 listed by the poll body as proof of citizenship.
