By Dr. Gyan Pathak
During the hearing of the bunch of petitions on Thursday July 10, 2025 challenging the Election Commission of India’s (ECI’s) order of June 24, 2025 for conducting Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of Electoral Rolls in Bihar, the Supreme Court said that citizenship is an issue to be determined not by the Election Commission of India, but by the Ministry of Home Affairs, clearly indicating that the ECI has stepped into the arena beyond its constitutional power in determining citizenship of the electors of Bihar before their name is included in the new revised electoral roll of 2025.
ECI’s order has made it mandatory for the electors of Bihar whose name was not in the Electoral Roll of 2003 to prove their citizenship, and also of their parents. The order effectively requires a person born after 1987 to prove their own citizenship along with the citizenship of their parents to get his or her name included in the revised in electoral roll.
Not only that, ECI has given a submission deadline for enumeration form and required documentation by July 25. The draft electoral roll will be released around August 1, followed by a claim and objection window until September 1, 2025. The final Revised Electoral Roll will be published on September 30, 2025.
ECI has also issued a details guideline for required documents. The order has also included which documents will be valid and which will be invalid, which the petitioners challenging the order alleged arbitrary.
The Supreme Court Bench comprising of Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia and Justice Joymala Bagchi asked the ECI as to why Aadhaar was not being accepted as proof of citizenship in the SIR of voter lists in Bihar, which goes to polls in October-November.
How difficult is the demand of documents by ECI as proof of citizenship can just be imagined by the comment of one of the judges in the bench who said that even he could not show all the documents mandated by the Election Commission of India, especially in such a short timeline set.
Senior advocate Gopal Sankaran Narayan appearing on behalf of one of the petitioners pointed out that Aadhaar is an acceptable document as per the Representation of Peoples Act, but the ECI is not considering it a valid document for Bihar SIR of Electoral Rolls.
The bench then asked the ECI why? Senior Advocate Rakesh Dwivedi appearing on behalf of the ECI has simply said, “Aadhaar Card cannot be used as proof of citizenship.”
How ridiculous was the order of the ECI not to accept Aadhar card as valid proof was pointed out by the bench, “Suppose I want a caste certificate… I show my Aadhaar card and I get a caste certificate based on that. So, that is a document (caste certificate) accepted (for SIR) but not Aadhaar.”
Why the ECI asked for 11 documents, the ECI’s lawyer said that Aadhaar is a proof of identity, while citizenship needed to be proved with a set of documents. Justice Dhulia remarked: “If you ask me for these documents, I myself cannot show you all these. Then with all your timelines… I am telling you the issues on the ground.”
When it came to the issue of citizenship, Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia remarked: “… citizenship is an issue to be determined not by the Election Commission of India, but by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs.” On this ECI’s lawyer said that the poll panel has the powers to check for citizenship for voting rights, under the Article 326 of the Constitution of India.
Timing of the order has been challenged by the petitioners, both the issuance of the order and not giving “reasonable time” to submit documents. Therefore, it was natural that the SC Bench questioned the timing of the exercise. Then it observed that if the ECI decided to take away the voting right of someone, that person has to appeal against the decision and “go through this entire rigmarole and thereby be denied of this right to vote in the ensuing election.”
The Supreme Court asked three pertinent questions to the ECI: one, about the EC’s very authority to conduct a “special intensive revision”; two, about the valid procedure, including what it can ask for; and then the timing of the exercise, just months ahead of the assembly polls.
The petitioners have contended that the ECI’s order is ill timed and hasty; revision is opaque and disproportionately targeting Muslim, Dalit, and poor migrants; violates the provisions of the Representation of Peoples Act, 1950 and Rule 21 A of the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960; shifted onus of proving citizenship from the state to citizen; excluded identification documents such as Aadhaar or ration cards which further make marginalised communities and the poor more vulnerable to exclusion from voting; and over three crore voters and more particularly from marginalised communities (such as SCs, STs, and migrant workers) could be excluded.
Supreme Court Bench has said that Aadhaar, ration cards, and an identity card issued by the Election Commission itself should considered as valid documents to re-verify voters’ identities, and allowed the process to continue. Nevertheless, the Bench indicated that the problem was not with a revision of the voter list but the timing, and said it had “serious doubts” over the EC’s ability to complete the task – without excluding genuine voters and allowing individuals the right to appeal – in time for the election. (IPA Service)
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