PTI
New Delhi
Delivering a major victory for the Election Commission (EC), the Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld its power to conduct a Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter rolls and said the exercise “breathes life” into the constitutional mandate for fair elections. Ruling on the intensely debated issue, a Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant held that deletion from the voter list does not amount to a legal declaration that an individual is not a citizen.
The bench, also comprising Justice Joymalya Bagchi, said the poll panel was empowered under Article 324 of the Constitution and Section 21(3) of the Representation of the People Act (RPA) to carry out special revisions. Disposing of a batch of petitions challenging the SIR exercise in Bihar, the apex court ruled that the exercise advances the “constitutional imperative of free and fair elections”.
“We are equally satisfied that, in its object and design, the impugned SIR bears a direct nexus to the constitutional goal of a free and fair election. Free and fair elections do not rest merely upon the mechanics of polling,” the court said. “They equally depend upon the integrity, accuracy and purity of the electoral roll which forms the foundation of the democratic process,” it said.
“The SIR breathes life into the constitutional mandate for fair elections,” the court said while rejecting arguments that the EC had overstepped its statutory powers. The 124-page judgment, authored by the CJI, agreed with the EC’s reasoning on the need for SIR.
The passage of more than two decades since the last intensive revision, large-scale additions and deletions over that period, rapid urbanisation, migration and the resulting possibility of repeated or defective entries are valid grounds for the SIR to preserve the foundational integrity of polls, the judgment said.
“The impugned SIR, therefore, is not a process designed to subvert the established procedure, but one intended to secure the constitutional mandate of free and fair elections by ensuring that the roll on which the election rests is accurate and reliable,” it said.
The verdict led to sharp reactions across the political spectrum.
