New Delhi, Aug 13, 2025 – The Supreme Court on Wednesday said the controversy around Bihar’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls represented a clash between the Election Commission of India’s authority to conduct elections under Article 324 of the Constitution and citizens’ constitutional right to vote under Article 326.
A Bench headed by Justice Surya Kant, with Justice Joymalya Bagchi, was hearing petitions that challenge the EC’s ongoing SIR process, under which nearly 65 lakh names have reportedly been deleted from Bihar’s voter list ahead of the November Assembly polls.
‘Casual removal of voters’
Senior advocates A.M. Singhvi and Gopal Sankaranarayanan argued that the EC’s method — sending pre-filled forms and then deleting lakhs of names without enquiry, physical verification, or a hearing — amounted to a “casual” denial of voting rights. They stressed that the Representation of the People Act requires strict enquiry before removing even a single voter, and questioned where the EC derived the authority for such mass deletions.
Mr. Sankaranarayanan described the procedure as unconstitutional, saying citizens had a statutory right to remain on the rolls unless properly disqualified. “Who gave the EC power to delete voters en masse, and under what law?” he asked.
EC’s discretionary powers under scrutiny
Justice Bagchi noted that Section 21(3) of the RP Act allows the EC to conduct a special revision “in such manner as it may think fit.” He asked whether this gave the Commission some “elbow room” to introduce new procedures like additional forms and documents.
The petitioners countered that Section 21(3) was intended only for exceptional circumstances — for example, a natural disaster affecting a constituency — and not for wholesale revision across a state. Justice Bagchi observed that outside of such rare cases, the EC must adhere to the Registration of Electors Rules (Rules 4–24).
Documents: voter-inclusive or exclusionary?
The Court also discussed the EC’s list of 11 acceptable documents for re-inclusion in the rolls. Justice Bagchi suggested that expanding the options could be “voter-inclusive.” But Mr. Singhvi disagreed, calling the list “impressive but hollow.” He pointed out that few residents in Bihar possess passports or matriculation certificates, while Aadhaar, held by nearly 87% of the state’s population, was excluded from the list.
He argued the policy disproportionately affects poor and rural voters, particularly women, effectively excluding those without access to rare documents.
Allegations of mala fide intent
Advocates further accused the EC of acting with malafide intent, citing the speed of the SIR process, the refusal to accept voter ID or Aadhaar, non-publication of the 65 lakh deleted names, and the removal of the draft roll search facility soon after Congress leader Rahul Gandhi raised the issue publicly.
Mr. Singhvi alleged that the EC’s policy presumes all voters registered since 2003 are invalid, shifting the burden onto citizens to “prove” their citizenship, even though many have cast ballots in multiple elections since then.
Advocate Prashant Bhushan added that the deletions without transparency or due process undermined the fundamental right to vote and exposed the SIR as a politically motivated exercise.
