Poll panel tells Supreme Court SIR was fair, lawful and transparent
New Delhi: The Election Commission of India on Thursday told the Supreme Court that its decision to undertake a Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls was “fair, just and reasonable” and urged the court to dismiss petitions challenging the exercise in Bihar.
The poll panel argued that a roving and fishing inquiry into the SIR could not be undertaken at the behest of a few NGOs and politicians. Appearing for the Commission, senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi said none of the 66 lakh voters whose names were deleted during the Bihar SIR had approached either the Supreme Court or the High Court, or filed objections with the Election Commission.
Mr. Dwivedi made the submissions during the final hearing of a batch of petitions, including those filed by the Association for Democratic Reforms and the People’s Union for Civil Liberties, challenging the conduct of SIRs in Bihar and other States.
Defending the exercise as lawful and transparent under the Representation of the People Act, 1950, Mr. Dwivedi urged the court to dismiss the petitions with costs. He argued that once the Commission invokes its powers under Section 21(3) of the Act, the manner and procedure of a special revision are left to its discretion and need not mirror routine revisions conducted under Section 21(2).
He said Bihar had not seen an SIR for nearly two decades and that the exercise was necessitated by changing demographic realities such as urbanisation and population movement. Merely adopting a different methodology or deviating from the manual governing routine revisions could not render the exercise illegal, he added.
The Chief Justice observed that if the Commission’s argument of unfettered discretion under Section 21(3) were accepted, the matter would effectively conclude there. Justice Joymalya Bagchi, however, questioned whether the amended citizenship framework could be cited as a trigger for the SIR when the Commission’s order did not expressly refer to trans-border or illegal migration, noting that inter-State migration is a constitutional right.
Mr. Dwivedi responded that amendments to the citizenship law enacted in 2003 had not been operationalised earlier and that the present SIR provided an opportunity to take note of the changed legal framework, while remaining within the scope of Article 326 guaranteeing adult suffrage.
Emphasising procedural safeguards, he said Booth Level Agents conducted door-to-door verification, more than five crore SMS alerts were sent to voters, and nearly 76 per cent of voters were not required to submit any documents. Others were allowed to furnish one of 11 prescribed documents. He maintained that the SIR could not be termed “manifestly arbitrary”.
The Bench noted that “manifest arbitrariness” has evolved as a facet of substantive due process, while cautioning against importing American notions of due process into Indian constitutional law. The petitions contend that deviations from the prescribed revision process lack transparency and risk the exclusion of genuine voters.
