The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld the legality of the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, rejecting concerns that the exercise amounts to a hidden citizenship verification drive.
A bench led by Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi ruled that the Election Commission acted within its constitutional powers while carrying out the revision process aimed at updating voter lists.
The court observed that the SIR exercise is linked only to electoral rolls and cannot be treated as a mechanism for deciding whether a person is an Indian citizen.
‘Deletion From Voter List Does Not End Citizenship’
Clarifying the scope of the Election Commission’s authority, the Supreme Court said removing a person’s name from the electoral roll does not automatically strip them of citizenship rights.
“The commission can delete, but that doesn’t mean he or she is no more the citizen of India. It doesn’t have anything to do with the determination of citizenship,” the bench said during the hearing.
The court stressed that the Election Commission may examine citizenship-related documents only to decide whether a person qualifies to remain on the voter list.
Opposition Had Raised Concerns Over SIR Exercise
The verdict came while hearing multiple petitions challenging the Special Intensive Revision process initiated by the Election Commission.
Petitioners and opposition leaders had argued that the exercise was indirectly turning into a citizenship verification mechanism. Concerns were also raised over the requirement asking voters whose names were missing from the 2002 or 2003 electoral rolls to establish ancestral links with individuals listed in those records.
Critics alleged that such conditions could lead to exclusion of genuine voters.
Election Commission Defends Revision Drive
The Election Commission defended the SIR exercise, saying the revision was necessary to clean up electoral rolls and remove duplicate or suspicious entries.
According to the poll body, the process was conducted under powers granted by election laws and constitutional provisions related to free and fair elections.
