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NEW DELHI: Supreme Court on Thursday pointed out to Election Commission that its SIR order did not clearly state that the exercise was also about illegal immigration, an assertion that was accepted by EC’s counsel, who said there was no express mention of the same in the order.A bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi said the SIR order did not state categorically that verification of citizenship was one of the reasons for conducting the exercise. Responding to the court’s query, senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi said, “It is not mentioned expressly.”Continuing with his submission, Dwivedi said that EC’s special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls was a fair, just and transparent exercise. The drive cannot be said to be manifestly arbitrary, he held and questioned the motive of petitioners who had moved the apex court against the commission.”None of the 66 lakh persons whose names were deleted in Bihar SIR came to this court or high court or filed pleas with Election Commission. A roving and fishing inquiry cannot be permitted at the instance of ADR (Association for Democratic Reforms) and PUCL (People’s Union for Civil Liberties) and a few parliamentarians,” the senior advocate said. American notions of “due process” could not be imported into Indian constitutional law as contended by the petitioners, he said, adding that the US itself was not following due process.”US court judgments have been cited… Where is the US following due procedure of law? President (Donald) Trump can just pick up the president of Venezuela for trial. Where is the due process, and now he wants Greenland also. Here, the petitioners want to import that,” he said.Emphasising transparency, Dwivedi said booth level agents conducted house-to-ho-use verification, over 5 crore SMS alerts were sent to voters and the process strictly followed procedural safeguards.On Wednesday, the bench had said EC could not have “untrammelled” power to conduct SIR of electoral rolls and the exercise must be subject to guidelines and procedures, including transparency and principles of natural justice.Pointing out that revision of electoral rolls could have serious civil consequences for individuals whose names were not included in the voters list, the CJI said, “If something affects the civil rights of people, why should the process followed not be in accordance with sub-section (2)?” The CJI was referring to Section 21 of the 1950 Act that governs preparation and revision of electoral rolls.
