New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday clarified that exclusion from an electoral roll does not result in the loss of citizenship, while upholding the Election Commission’s authority to carry out the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter lists.
In a significant observation, the apex court stated that the powers of the Election Commission during the SIR exercise are restricted to determining eligibility for inclusion in electoral rolls and do not extend to deciding questions of citizenship.
The court stressed that the SIR process does not grant the Election Commission any absolute or unrestricted authority to determine whether an individual is a citizen. It further observed that if a person’s name is absent from the voter list, it cannot automatically be interpreted as failure to prove citizenship. Instead, the court said, such exclusion only reflects the Election Commission’s inability to verify the individual’s status during the verification process.
The bench also noted that any person excluded from the electoral rolls must be dealt with strictly in accordance with the law. It underlined that the entire SIR process remains open to judicial scrutiny and any arbitrary action or wrongful exclusion can be challenged before the appropriate legal forums.
While defending the revision exercise, the Supreme Court stated that free and fair elections are not limited to the act of polling alone, but also depend on maintaining accurate and reliable electoral rolls. The court ruled that the SIR process was initiated with a legitimate constitutional objective aimed at restoring accuracy in voter lists.
The verdict came while deciding petitions challenging the Election Commission’s order for a Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls in Bihar assembly constituencies. Petitioners had argued that the poll body was effectively assuming powers related to citizenship verification while deciding voter eligibility.
The court, however, held that the SIR exercise was consistent with the provisions of the Representation of the People Act and derived legitimacy from Article 324 of the Constitution, which empowers the Election Commission to supervise elections.
On the issue of identity documents, the court clarified that the eleven documents prescribed by the Election Commission were only indicative and not exhaustive. It also observed that Aadhaar could be accepted as an additional supporting document during verification.
