This report summarises the panel discussion on the topic “Special Intensive Revision: Contours and Contents of Citizenship”, during the 7th Edition of the Courts and the Constitution Conference at NALSAR. The panel consisted of Supreme Court practitioners and legal academicians who took a close look at the Election Commission of India’s Special Intensive Revision of Electoral Rolls.
The panel comprised of Dr. Anupama Roy (Professor, Jawaharlal Nehru University), Ms. Ayushi Kar (Data Journalist, Reporters’ Collective), Mr. Nizam Pasha (Advocate, Supreme Court of India), and Mr. Aditya Sondhi (Senior Advocate, Supreme Court of India), and the discussion was moderated by Dr. Aymen Mohammed (NALSAR).
Speaker 1: Dr. Anupama Roy (Professor, Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi)
Dr. Anupama Roy, part of the Centre for Political Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi spoke about looking at the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in how we understand institutional practices, specifically, within the institution of the Election Commission of India (ECI). She further located the ECI within a larger institutional system of which the Supreme Court of India is also a part.
Dr. Roy, while providing a historical context, pointed out that the present case is exceptional and that one cannot help but compare (i) the way the electoral roll has come to be perceived as a political artefact, with (ii) the exceptional context in which the first electoral roll was prepared. During the preparation of the latter, there was no previous electoral roll based on universal adult franchise to refer to, and the laws regulating elections and the preparation of the electoral roll were piecemeal. However, that is no longer the case as there is now a constitutional mandate under Article 324. Furthermore, Section 21 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950 (RPA) and the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960 provides guidelines and directions in the preparation of the electoral roll.
She explained that the SIR is essentially an exercise of preparing a new electoral roll based on citizen identification. However, during this preparation, the ECI does not seem to be following the prescribed procedures. The purpose of the electoral roll has historically been to unleash popular sovereignty, but currently, the way SIR functions is what Dr. Roy called the politics of non-citizenship. This is because the SIR coincides and must be seen in congruence with various identification regimes, including the One Nation – One Election, the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and the National Population Register (NPR).
Importantly, she highlighted how the electoral roll should not function as a state mechanism to target citizens based on documentary evidence of citizenship. The way in which the enumeration of voters in the electoral roll is envisaged not only in Article 324, but also in the statutory frameworks, is that there is an assumption of eligibility for enrolment, unless it can be proved that a particular individual is disqualified on the specific criteria identified in the RPA, 1950. But now, what the SIR has done, as Dr. Roy said, is give validation to the assumption that nobody is a citizen unless the person can present legible documents to the State, for insertion into the electoral roll. The kind of power granted to the documents, raised important questions. Is a person considered a citizen of India just because they have specific documents, and can citizenship be granted solely by obtaining such documents?
Dr. Roy said that the SIR essentially adopts the NRC’s modus operandi, and then asked a crucial question of whether, at all, the ECI has the power to identify or determine citizenship in the process of preparing the electoral roll. For the longest time, there was no overlap. It was only in 1984, in Inderjit Barua v. Election Commission of India, that the ECI issued a directive stating that the presence of individuals on the electoral roll is, by itself, sufficient proof of their citizenship. Then, in Lal Babu Hussein v. Electoral Registration Officer, the Court laid down a presumption of constitutionality, that when a person’s name is already on the electoral roll, it may be presumed that the statutory procedure for including that name was properly followed.
She spoke about how, in Bihar, the ECI issued a directive that certain names should be deleted from the Electoral Roll during preparation. The petitioners sought the cancellation of the election on the grounds of this directive. The Supreme Court, however, said that the ECI has the responsibility, in disputed divisional cases, to decide whether a person is a citizen. With this, the electoral roll has been reduced to the status of a political artefact, i.e., encased in contestations over social and political power, which is visible in the form of bureaucratic practices associated with the preparation of the electoral roll.
She finally suggested that with the SIR, we have entered a phase of what she called ‘banal statism’, where the notion of constantly submitting documents to the state to demonstrate one’s legitimacy has become a means for the state to maintain control over citizens.
Speaker 2: Ms. Ayushi Kar (Data Journalist, Reporters’ Collective)
Ms. Ayushi Kar, a data journalist with the Reporters’ Collective, has extensively covered the SIR during a period when media outlets were largely hesitant to report on the exercise from start to finish. Following criticism after the Bihar SIR Notification, the ECI attempted to justify the exercise, saying that technological advances now make such exercises feasible, unlike in the past. With firsthand experience of profiling the exercise, Ms. Kar analysed the technologies involved and their implementation at the grassroots level.
Referring to Dr. Roy’s explanation of how the SIR existed in a legal grey area, Ms. Kar noted that their journalistic investigation concluded that the SIR, which began in Bihar and later reached Bengal and other states, has evolved into different versions with each iteration. She explained that although we recognise there is uncertainty, nobody understands how the SIR was originally instituted. The 2003 SIR order, which is regarded as the foundation for the exercise, has not been disclosed by the ECI, despite efforts by the Reporters’ Collective and other media organisations.
She explained that in Bihar, the benchmarks set by previous annual revisions have not been achieved. The previously used de-duplication software was abandoned, and the ECI did not identify any algorithm that would simplify the process, as claimed. The ECI told the Supreme Court that the software was abandoned because it was flawed, and that their manual list-making was much more efficient than any algorithmic check. However, the Reporters’ Collective found that no genuine verification had been conducted, uncovering 14.35 lakh duplicate voters in the final voter roll.
Ms. Kar highlighted the language used to describe voters, from ‘suspicious’ to ‘unmapped,’ ‘logical discrepancies,’ and those under adjudication in Bengal. In Bengal, the ECI introduced mapping, aligning voters with the 2003 list, exempting 80% from documentation requirements and requiring 20% to provide citizenship documents. An improper transliteration software caused errors, leading lakhs of people to needlessly be called for document verification. The Reporters’ Collective also reviewed how documents were verified, finding that the criteria were not conveyed by the ECI through clear documentation but instead through methods such as video calls and WhatsApp messages, which cannot be legally appraised per se.
She highlighted that minorities, tribal regions, and Muslims, often labelled as suspect voters, are disproportionately affected. The ECI considers factors such as the number of children over six and name discrepancies, which are otherwise common in administrative processes. Muslim-majority and high migrant areas, including Bangladeshi Hindus who likely gained citizenship under the CAA, are heavily flagged because they could not have possibly been mapped to the 2003 list.
Ms. Kar concluded by noting that, due to technological changes, it was physically impossible for the Election Register Officers to even click the final verification option, or for individuals to upload Aadhaar. She summarised that the type of changes the ECI is implementing are made behind the scenes through software updates, rather than through explicit instructions that could be legally challenged or publicly examined.
Speaker 3: Mr. Nizam Pasha (Advocate, Supreme Court of India)
Mr. Nizam Pasha, an advocate at the Supreme Court, addressed how the Court’s decisions on the SIR were made, focusing on overseeing the process rather than deciding on constitutionality. He explained how, nevertheless, the decision was never explicitly taken. He argued that the exercise should not have been allowed to continue pending a determination of its legality.
He noted that, given the timing of the petition, the question of a stay was not considered. He also noted that this exercise involves significant expenditure of money and the State’s time and resources. Eventually, when the hearing took place, the Supreme Court reserved judgment. In his opinion, at this stage, it has become a fait accompli that it is a valid exercise, and instead of remaining on the question of its legality, the focus shifts to monitoring it to ensure that it is, overall, more inclusive and proper.
Briefly discussing the issue in terms of constitutionality, he noted that the ECI interprets its own power as essentially a carte blanche under Article 324. This stems from its understanding of Section 21 of the RPA, 1950, which states that the “Election Commission may at any time, for reasons to be recorded, direct a special revision of the electoral roll for any constituency or part of a constituency in such manner as it may think fit.” In light of this, the reasoning behind the SIR has two critical flaws:
Firstly, any electoral roll that is not the current roll has no basis in law. As such, selecting any roll (such as the 2003 electoral roll) over another is arbitrary. Noting that the exercise harks back to the 2003 electoral roll, the ECI itself is casting doubt on all exercises from 2003 to today, on the basis that the revision is intensive. Not only does this undermine the ECI’s actions, but it also creates a legal problem.
Secondly, he explained a fundamental flaw, that a revision is not summary or intensive to an individual. It is intensive when the entire state or the entire country is under scrutiny, and it occurs de novo from the grassroots level. It does not put any individual under additional scrutiny, as the same process must be followed, whether it is a summary revision or an intensive one.
Moving on to the ECI’s perceptions of its own power in considering the question of citizenship, Mr. Pasha first explained that Form-6, prescribed for fresh inclusion into the electoral roll, includes a self-declaration of citizenship. This self-declaration is the limited degree to which the Election Commissioner has been given power insofar as the question of citizenship is concerned. However, the ECI takes the position that while the Central Government has some power to determine the question of citizenship (under the CAA), the power is not exclusionary. Aspects related to citizenship can be inquired into by other authorities, especially those constitutionally obligated to do so, i.e., the ECI.
Finally, Mr. Pasha explained how the ECI relies on the highly criticised judgment of Sarbananda Sonowal v. Union of India to justify placing the burden of proof of citizenship on the suspect voters. Building on Dr. Roy and Ms. Kar, he explained how the NRC and the CAA are successive in nature. The NRC exercise in Assam rendered 19 lakh persons stateless, and the CAA paved the way for determining who could be rendered stateless and who could not on the basis of religion. The SIR notification in June 2025 followed in September 2025 by an Order that is even broader than the NRC, extending the exclusion to December 2024, whereas under the CAA it was until December 2014. However, the people left out of this net are minorities and Muslims from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh, and refugees from Myanmar, creating a carve-out once again on the basis of religion. He concluded by noting that he looks forward to seeing these issues addressed in the judgment.
Speaker 4: Mr. Aditya Sondhi (Senior Advocate, Supreme Court of India)
Mr. Aditya Sondhi is a senior advocate at the Supreme Court. He threw light on the system where the broader net is being (widely) cast, in the sense that every voter is technically a suspect, after which the actual suspicious voter is filtered out.
He began by explaining that it would be advantageous to adopt the practice of passing interim orders, as this allows a policy to be held as prima facie valid, invalid, or partially valid or invalid. He noted that the SIR is not a foreign or new concept which has suddenly sprung up on us as citizens and voters.
He explained that Section 21(3) of the RPA, 1950 entails that the SIR undertaken can be taken for (emphasis) a constituency for reasons to be assigned. As such, from the perspective of the ECI, the moment this extraordinary exercise of SIR is undertaken, the reasons per constituency become significant, because each constituency has its own dynamics. For example, in Bihar, the problem the ECI thought it was facing was inward migration, while in Tamil Nadu, it was outward migration.
Mr. Sondhi noted that the great speed at which the SIR took place resulted in the disenfranchisement or the exclusion of large migrant communities. Had the ECI applied itself to the needs of each constituency, especially those in hilly, migrant, tribal, marginalised parts of Tamil Nadu, or any other part of Bihar, or any state where SIR is undertaken, he says, they would then be compelled to explain the reasons for holding the SIR in those particular constituencies and the timing thereof. He said that what happened is a fait accompli, and that this is said every time the marginalised groups are excluded from this en masse, ad hoc and en bloc exercise, which is being carried out without sufficient reason.
Before even discussing Article 324 and constitutional jurisprudence, he said that, under the very first principle of administrative law, if an order does not justify itself on cogent and specific reasons, it should be stayed or it should go, which, unfortunately, has not happened. He highlighted the fact that Article 324 is not a catch-all either. As the Supreme Court has said in Mohinder Singh Gill v. Chief Election Commissioner, the ECI must yield to statute.
Mr. Sondhi explained that exercise is essentially not only diluting the right to vote, but also creating an identity crisis. While the ability to vote is important in its own right, the collective identity crisis across states is, to him, a bigger deal.
Referring to George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, Mr. Sondhi said we have many unpersons, i.e., invisible citizens floating around as a result of what is meant to be an ordinary administrative process. What was meant to be a roll revision has now become a citizenship identification exercise. Once again, he said, this shows that a supposedly ordinary administrative exercise of power is stepping into questions of citizenship. He concluded that this is a crucial moment in our constitutional history, and that it is an important disconnect between what the law demands of the ECI and how the ECI sees its own role that must be addressed.
Edited by: Aditi Bhojnagarwala and Keerthi Sathvika Tammineedi
