The Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls is likely to start in several more States anytime soon. Citizens’ movements in these States need to demand a stop to the SIR and ask for measures that will ensure that no genuine voter is excluded. The experience of States where SIR has been conducted have thrown up the many excruciating hurdles that citizens are facing to get their names included in the rolls and the lakhs or crores that are getting deleted.
One of the purposes of the SIR as stated in the ECI order dated 24th June 2025 is that the ECI (Election Commission of India) has a constitutional obligation under Article 326 to ensure that only persons who are citizens are enrolled in the electoral roll as voters. So, while the unstated aim of the SIR exercise remains hidden in this ECI order, the real intent is becoming obvious by the manner in which several party workers of the party in power at the Centre have been submitting thousands of false Forms 7 in bulk to get mostly minorities’ names deleted.
Critics contest that the ECI has no right to verify anyone’s citizenship and the whole process of asking citizens to prove citizenship during the current SIR is invalid. Being cited in defence of this is the 1995 SC judgment in Lal Babu Hussain and Others vs Electoral Registration Officer and Others. But the above judgement says thatwhere the name is to be entered on the rolls for the first time, “… the concerned officer ….. would be justified in requiring the concerned person to show evidence that he is a citizen of India.” So, as per this part of the judgement, to ask a citizen to prove his citizenship in the case of fresh inclusions is not invalid.
But where a name is already entered in an existing roll, the judgment says, “…it must be presumed that before entering his name the concerned officer must have gone through the procedural requirements under the statute”, i.e., checked his citizenship. Hence, the judgment continues, “…the concerned person whose name is borne on the roll and is intended to be removed must be informed why a suspicion has arisen in regard to his status as a citizen of India …. Unless the basis for the doubt is disclosed, it would not be possible for the concerned person to remove the doubt and explain any circumstance or circumstances responsible for the doubt.” [But the presumption that the concerned officer “must have gone through the procedural requirements under the statute” is debatable as at no time have Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) asked voters to prove their citizenship as they have generally accepted the self-declaration made by voters in Form 6 that they are citizens of India. Investigations were undertaken only if someone complained that a voter was not a citizen and this happened rarely. ]
However, in apposition to what the judgement says about the ‘probative value’ of citizenship assigned to names which are already there in an existing electoral roll, Enumeration Forms are being given during the SIR to everyone whose names are already there in the 2024 or 2025 electoral rolls, requiring them to provide documents to prove their citizenship. Though the Enumeration Form is not saying that their citizenship is under doubt, and no basis for the doubt is disclosed, there is a ‘presumption of doubt’ which is being critiqued.
An Intervening Application filed [in Writ Petition (Civil) no. 1072 of 2025] in the Supreme Court (SC) by Lt. Col. A. K. Antony (Retd.) says that “the concept of probative value is now tweaked by the SIR order by restricting such probative value to those names included in the previous SIR (of 2003). This is a substantive violation of natural justice as this results in shifting the onus of initial burden of proof. That by merely sending a letter stating that the details in the Enumeration Form are missing/ incorrect/not matching is not a reason to delete the names from the electoral rolls. Disqualification as per statute alone could be the reason.”
Documents that do not match because of the mapping of names in the 2024 or 2025 rolls with the 2003 roll, and fresh reasons, such as questioning of age differences between grandparents, parents and children, etc., have given rise to crores of ‘logical discrepancies’ for which there is no precedent in intensive revisions conducted earlier.
What is of real concern is that retrospective documents to prove citizenship based on the previous SIR of 2003 are being sought which most citizens do not possess. How justified is it to ask them to produce documents which they don’t have, that too when the SIR of Bihar has shown that less than 0.1% of the population may have been illegal immigrants? Hence, what should be the demand of citizens’ movements to stop this harassment of ordinary citizens and enable universal suffrage?
It is significant that the group “Hindus for Human Rights” (HfHR) in the USA organised a conclave on 28.02.2026 with focus on migrant justice, as the U.S. immigration officials intensified raids and detentions of immigrants across the USA. The concept note of the conclave notes that “around the world, people continue to move, driven by war, climate catastrophe, and economic precarity, even as migrants are criminalized and rendered disposable”. The HfHR premises that Indian traditions already contain “deep ethical resources for migrant justice”. It says, “From ‘Atithi devo bhava (the guest as divine) to vasudhaiva kutumbakam (the world as one family), our philosophical and devotional inheritances challenge narrow and exclusionary notions of belonging. Dharma includes the protection of those who seek refuge”. Should citizens, faced with the SIR, demand of the Centre to recognise the above civilizational tenets of this land and bring in an inclusive policy of citizenship which will assimilate the 1% of the population who may be illegal immigrants, so that no genuine citizen is disenfranchised?
About Author: Kathyayini Chamaraj is the Executive Trustee of CIVIC-Bangalore and a Karnataka State Coordinator of the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR).
The article was originally published in Countercurrents.