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The Election Commission of India (ECI) has, in no uncertain terms, told the Supreme Court to leave its “exclusive jurisdiction” to decide when and how to conduct Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls alone.
The ECI said its power to decide if a revisional exercise would be intensive or summary would “depend on the situation”. Anyway, the poll body said, the call was entirely its own and outside the judicial ambit.
“The decision to conduct a summary or an intensive revision of the electoral roll is left to the discretion of the ECI. The ECI has complete discretion over the policy of revision to the exclusion of any other authority,” the poll panel submitted.
Provisions of the Representation of the People Act, 1950 and the Registration of Electoral Rules, 1960 gave the ECI “complete discretion on the timing of the revisional exercise”.
“The obligation to conduct a revision of the electoral roll is not couched within a timeline,” the ECI noted.
EC on Bihar Voter List: Claims Allowed Post Deadline, SC Steps In
The Election Commission told the Supreme Court that claims and objections in Bihar's draft electoral roll can be filed after September 1 but will be considered only after finalisation. The SC flagged a "trust issue" and ordered paralegal volunteers to assist voters. EC rejected RJD’s claim of filing 36 objections, confirming only 10 were submitted and accepted. With 99.5% document completion, the EC called the Special Revision a continuing process. | Video Credit: The Hindu
The poll body said the law allowed it power to hold a special revision of the electoral roll of any constituency or part of it “in such a manner as it may think fit”.
The ECI was responding to a petition seeking a judicial direction from the apex court to the poll body to conduct SIR at “regular intervals” throughout the country to identify and expel foreign infiltrators enrolled as Indian voters.
The petitioner, Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay, said periodic SIR before every General, State Assembly and bocal body elections was necessary to protect the purity of the electoral process.
But the poll panel would brook no interference from the courts.
“A direction to conduct SIR at ‘regular intervals’ throughout the country would encroach the exclusive jurisdiction of the Election Commission,” the top poll body replied plainly.
The exchange has come in the middle of an ongoing dispute over the Bihar SIR exercise, which petitioners, including Opposition political parties, have claimed to be “citizenship screening” in the guise of a revisional exercise of the State’s electoral roll.
The top poll body assured it was “fully cognisant of its statutory duty to maintain the purity and integrity of the electoral rolls”.
The EC confirmed there would be a nationwide SIR with January 1, 2026 as the qualifying date.
“There is a letter of July 5 to all Chief Electoral Officers (CEOs) of States and UTs to initiate immediate pre-revision activities for the SIR of electoral rolls with reference to January 1, 2026 as the qualifying date on a nationwide basis,” the EC informed the court.
The EC said it had also convened a conference of all the CEOs of the States and Union Territories at New Delhi on September 10 to “further strengthen and coordinate preparatory measures for conducting SIR” nationwide.
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