The Supreme Court is hearing a batch of petitions challenging the Election Commission of India’s June 24 directive for a Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar.
A Bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi is hearing the matter.
The petitioners have raised concerns that the SIR process permits arbitrary deletion of voters without adequate safeguards, potentially disenfranchising lakhs of citizens and undermining free and fair elections.
The Election Commission has defended its directive, asserting that it is empowered to undertake such an exercise under Article 324 of the Constitution and Section 21(3) of the Representation of the People Act, 1950.
It has maintained that the revision was necessary in light of urban migration, demographic shifts, and long-standing concerns about the accuracy of existing rolls, which had not been intensively revised in nearly twenty years.
The Commission has further submitted that the SIR is crucial to ensure that only eligible citizens are included in the electoral rolls ahead of the upcoming Bihar Assembly elections.
One of the issues that the Court is considering has been the list of documents that may be accepted by the Election Commission to verify the identity of voters to retain their names in the electoral list.
On July 10, the top court had urged the Election Commission to consider Aadhaar, ration card and electoral photo identity card (EPIC card) as admissible documents for this verification exercise.
The Commission, however, later submitted an affidavit stating that neither Aadhaar cards nor ration cards can be treated as proof of eligibility to vote.
The petitioners have challenged the exclusion of these documents as absurd.
The petitioners include opposition leaders from various States, and organizations such as the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), the People's Union for Civil Liberties, and the National Federation for Indian Women.
More recently, the ADR filed an interim application urging the Court to direct the ECI to disclose details of 65 lakh names recently dropped from a Bihar electoral roll published on August 1 as part of the SIR.
The ECI responded by stating that there was no legal requirement for it to disclose such reasons for publish a separate list of excluded voters.
It, however, added that no name will be struck off from Bihar’s draft electoral roll without prior notice, an opportunity to be heard and a reasoned order from the competent authority.
Live updates from the hearing today feature here.
Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal: I won't be taking much time
Senior Adv Rakesh Dwivedi: yesterday we have got an IA with documents. They have annexed 200 pages. We have not prepared reply on that
Justice Kant: we will grant you time
Sibal: Any person born after 1950..is deemed to be the citizen of India
Justice Kant: are you arguing main case or interim
Sibal: Time is short. I will show my submission on the process being followed.
Justice Kant: Tell us such a process can be issued or not issued. If you say such a process is allowed under conditional scheme, then we will go to the process.. if you say it is not in the constitution itself
Sr Adv Gopal Sankaranarayanan: the mass exclusion has happened. 65 lakhs out
SC: Mass exclusion will depend on facts and figures
Sibal; in one small constituency there are 12 people who are shown to be dead but they are alive. BLO has not conducted any excercise..
Sibal: What are the BLOs doing?
Senior Adv Dwivedi: This is just a draft roll.
SC; we have to ask you how many are identified as dead persons.. your authorities must have done some work.
Dwivedi: such a large exercise shall have some error here and there. But saying dead is alive etc is not good and no fresh IA is needed
Sr Adv Kapil Sibal: Please see page 70 serial number 5.. aadhaar details..that's the requirement for the intensive exercise..
Justice Bagchi: this is with regard to your objections to the draft rolls. Rule 10 is rule for preparation of draft roll. Now if there is an omission .. like 65 lakh etc require to make application under form 16.
Sibal: but see how the draft has to be prepared..
Justice Bagchi: you are correct.. all preceding steps to rule 10 are preparatory ones. So ur correct to say whether requisite form 4 was issued by the BLOs.. and since it was not done .. the draft roll has not followed the process.
SC: who is before us then?
Sibal: all the persons declared dead are here
Justice Kant: we will take them to task. That kind of error has to be rectified.
Sibal: each booth has this error. This is not fair.
Matter to resume post 2 pm
Hearing resumes.
Sr Adv Kapil Sibal reads the forms required: see what was asked in enumeration form. None of this.
Sr Adv Sibal: The entire exercise which has been conducted does not have legal sanction. It is devoid in law
Sibal: see the enumeration form. There is no form 4.
Justice Kant: where does the form say that all documents must be there.. let us see truth or apprehension.
Sibal: ofcourse it's needed.
Justice Kant: but something will be needed to see whether they are resident or not. There are family registers, pension cards etc.. very sweeping argument to say that people do not have these documents.
Sibal: they are not accepting Ration cards or Aadhaar card.
Justice Kant: please see section 9 of the Aadhaar Act. These are documents which prima facie show a person is a bona fide resident of the area
Sr Adv Sibal: Once I give Aadhaar, I prove my residence.. but then the burden lies on the person saying that the document is not correct.
Bench discussing.
The senior counsels too discuss among themselves
Justice Kant: We have to see if the Election Commission has the power or not.. but if they have then...
Sibal: But here when you fill the form you don't have to give any documents.
Sibal: if you are in 2003 rolls you have to fill the form and also give the document. If you do not fill you are out.
Justice Bagchi: These 65 lakh is in relation to the 2003 rolls?
Sibal: no it's 2025. ECI says they have not enquired on this.. then how was this prepared at all. 7.9 crores in 2025. 7.25 crores have furnished form they say.
Justice Kant; if a citizen is thrown out.. we are trying to understand if it is an imaginary apprehension or there is some truth to it.
Justice Kant: Out of 62, 22 lakh shifted. So the ultimate that remains in this controversy are 35 lakhs
Justice Bagchi: This inclusion in summary revision roll does not give you a carte blanche inclusion into the intensive revision roll
Justice Kant: a dead person, a person who has shifted, will also be in draft roll, it's not a final one.
Adv Prashant Bhushan: On August 4 the draft roll was searchable. After August 6, they have removed it and now names cannot be searched. That was suspicious...
Justice Kant: who is the officer in charge of this?
Sr Adv Dwivedi: Booth level officer
Bhushan: Among the 7.24 crore people who filled up enumeration forms, BLOs have written against each of them stating recommended and not recommended. We have lists from two districts from a whistleblower... Now there are atleast 10-12 are not recommended ..and they are the ones who submitted the forms.
Justice Kant: Suppose a person is a voter as on 1.1.2003 and he is alive, and now his children are 18 years of age.. then will his parents have to be show documents?
Dwivedi: no. Like this 6.25 crore does not have to show documents. He has to just state that the father is in 2003
Justice Kant: this is a case of trust deficiency that's all
Advocate Vrinda Grover: This is an unlawful exercise which lies within the bounds of parliament.
Justice Kant: See the Election Commission is correct in saying that Aadhar can't be accepted as conclusive proof of citizenship; it has to be verified. See section 9 of the Aadhaar Act.
Justice Kant: Are petitioners saying that aadhaar card is proof of citizenship? They are not saying that it is not a measure.. the aadhaar act says so.
Senior Advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi: from 2003 to 2025 it is 22 years. There is a presumptive exclusion stating that these will not be on the list... Presumptively, citizenship cannot be doubted for 5 crore people.
Singhvi: There are many who have voted in different elections, and now there is a presumption that they are not included. You have presumptively declared five crore as invalid.
SC: If they do so we will adjudicate the same... Are we going to explain to everyone that if we find something suspicious, can't we include all of them in 2025 list into the roll?
Singhvi: Election Commission was never intended to be the policeman of citizenship.
Justice Kant: Law of granting or taking away citizenship has to be passed by the parliament, but the inclusion and exclusion of citizens and non citizens from the rolls is within ECI remit
Singhvi: Yes, I can be stopped till I apply and get citizenship, but if I am on the roll already.
Singhvi: These voters have voted earlier elections already.. EC is forgetting that we have already voted in 5-6 elections. This is directly contrary to Lal Babu Hussain Judgment also. Please see para 12 .. any person whose name is not recorded in 2003 roll shall for the purpose of registering furnish documents among the wide variety of documents to establish their Citizenship... What is happening here is de facto deletion. Non-inclusion is the clever word being used here.
Singhvi: ECI cannot become the determiner of citizenship..
Sr Adv Singhvi: You cannot have natural justice for Assam and unnatural justice for the rest of the country. It is said that after ERO has referred the case, he will wait for the relevant tribunal to deliver judgment.
Yogendra Yadav: Vast exclusion has already begun ...exclusion is much more than 65 lakhs. This is not a failure of implementation of SIR, but because of the fact that wherever you implement SIR, the result will be the same.
Yadav: Presumption that Bihar's voter list was inflated and needed correction was wrong. Actually, Bihar is deflated slightly.
Justice Kant: When SIR was done in 2003 was any study done what the impact was
Yadav: There was no comparison done ever.. never in the history of this country has asked all people to submit their forms in revision exercise. If it was done in 2003, the other side should point it out.
Yadav: What was special in 2003 that SIR was done apart from the word "intensive" being used. This is the first exercise in the history of the country where revision has taken place with zero additions. Zero additions.
Justice Kant: but that means SIR or IR would mean for inclusion only.. but what about bogus voters?
Yadav: but that is the right of the ECI. This was an excercise in intensive deletion. They went across the state and did not find a single addition.
Yadav: I have never heard of legal orders being changed by press releases. According to ECI, all these 7.24 crores filled will have to be scrutinised. ECI handbook says 4,600 forms will be tallied by ERO every single day. He also happens to be BDO and there are floods in Bihar now.
Yadav: When I file appeal for not including my name.. it is decided after the list is frozen and then, best of luck after 5 years. This is dreadful. We also have confirmation that more names of women have been deleted than men. 31 lakh women have been deleted.. 25 lakh men have been deleted.
Yadav: We are witnessing the largest exercise of disenfranchisement in the history of the world. 65 lakh names deleted. Never in the history of India it has never happened.
Yadav: The figure is bound to cross 1 crore. This is not an issue of revision. Please see them. These are declared as dead. They don't appear. But they are alive..see them
Sr Adv Rakesh Dwivedi: What is this drama?
Justice Bagchi: May have been inadvertent error. Can be corrected. But your points are well taken.
Justice Kant: we are proud of our Indian citizens to be in our court
Justice Kant: Mr Yadav thank you. Excellent analysis. Thank you for your quality analysis. #BiharSIR2025 Matter to resume tomorrow after fresh matters.