Speaking at NALSAR University of Law in Hyderabad on Sunday, Justice Bhuyan said the Constitution does not contemplate two classes of citizens — those entitled to vote and those denied that right — as controversy continues over the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls.
“If any process results in disenfranchising millions and millions of Indian citizens making them second-class citizens in their own country in the sense of being citizens without a voting right, such a process is intrinsically arbitrary,” he said. “No amount of whataboutery can justify it.”
Justice Bhuyan said such an outcome would strike at the heart of the Constitution and amount to a negation of the constitutional order. He added that a process producing wholesale disenfranchisement would violate Articles 326 and 14, which respectively underpin adult suffrage and equality before law.
The judge was delivering the valedictory address at the 19th Justice Bodh Raj Sawhney Memorial Moot Court Competition. His comments came against the backdrop of continuing disputes over the SIR, although his address framed the issue principally as a question of constitutional voting rights rather than a ruling on the legality of any particular revision exercise.
Justice Bhuyan is not on the bench that decided the principal challenge to the Bihar SIR. The Supreme Court, in a May 27 judgment delivered by Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi, upheld the Election Commission’s power to conduct that exercise while examining its purpose, proportionality and procedures.
The Election Commission has since continued the SIR process in other states and Union Territories. Its voter services portal identifies the 2026 exercise and provides facilities for electors to search earlier rolls, submit documents against notices and apply for registration.
Justice Bhuyan stressed that the right to vote, while held in several Supreme Court judgments not to be a fundamental right, is a constitutional right flowing from Article 326. Legislation may regulate its exercise, he said, but cannot travel beyond the constitutional limits imposed by Articles 325 and 326.
Article 326 provides that elections to the Lok Sabha and state legislative assemblies are to be based on adult suffrage. Citizens aged 18 or above are entitled to be registered as voters unless disqualified on constitutionally permitted grounds including non-residence, unsoundness of mind, crime, or corrupt or illegal practice.
Justice Bhuyan linked that guarantee to Article 14, saying universal adult franchise gives practical content to political equality. He said the value of a billionaire’s vote is the same as that of a rickshaw puller, illustrating the constitutional principle that economic or social status cannot determine the weight of a citizen’s electoral voice.
He also referred to Article 325, which provides for one general electoral roll for each territorial constituency and bars exclusion from a roll solely on grounds of religion, race, caste or sex.
Addressing deletion from electoral rolls, Justice Bhuyan invoked the Supreme Court’s 1995 ruling in Lal Babu Hussain versus Electoral Registration Officer. He said that, except where a voter has died, a person whose name is already on a roll cannot be removed without notice and an opportunity to be heard.
The right to vote or to be included on the voters’ list could not be detached from the persona of a citizen, he said, comparing such separation to taking the soul out of the body.
Justice Bhuyan said Article 326 could not be tinkered with by any authority and that no court could endorse or condone action contrary to it. “No one is above the Constitution,” he said.
