NEW DELHI: Supreme Court on Wednesday emphatically said the Election Commission is statutorily and constitutionally empowered to conduct the pan-India Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls and that it would not stall the process, while assuring that it would order corrective measures, if any irregularities were brought to its notice.CJI Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi rejected arguments questioning the justification of SIR, with the former saying not a single objection was filed against the updation of electoral rolls after the process was fine-tuned at the apex court’s instance.Appearing for RJD MP Manoj Jha, senior advocate Kapil Sibal commenced arguments questioning SIR’s constitutional validity, saying there are millions of illiterate people who can’t fill voter enumeration forms, which have become a tool for exclusion.”Why should a voter be asked to fill an enumeration form at all? Who is EC to determine whether a person is an Indian citizen or not? Aadhaar card mentions the place of residence and date of birth, which should be enough for persons above 18 years to get enrolled as voters if they give a self-declaration that they are Indian citizens,” Sibal argued.CJI Kant said, “Sibal, you have experience of contesting elections in Delhi, where many people do not vote. But in rural areas, elections are a festival. There, everyone is concerned about their votes. A maximum number of people participate, and everyone knows who a resident of the village is.”CJI cites Bihar, says no impact on groundSenior advocate Kapil Sibal said such an exercise had never been conducted in India because the ethos of our ‘Poorna Swaraj’ mantra from the freedom struggle days was inclusionary, not exclusionary. Justice Bagchi said, “It is a matter of record that in 2012 and 2014, the number of voters exceeded the total adult population. Is it not necessary to correct the electoral roll? If EC has a doubt about someone’s citizenship, is it not entitled to inquire about it? If EC carries out an aggressive revision of the electoral roll, there will be deletions.”CJI Kant said the SIR of Bihar’s electoral rolls was a prime example. “Initially, the court was told that crores of voters are being deleted. We issued certain directions to streamline the process. Eventually, what happened? Among the deletions from the voter list were those found to have died or migrated outside. No one filed an objection. We did not find any impact on the ground level,” he said.The bench’s observations led Sibal to switch from highlighting the ill-impact of SIR to focus on questioning its constitutional validity. “The process must be inclusive and the burden of proving citizenship cannot be fastened on the voters. If there is a doubtful voter, his/her case should be referred to the competent authority to determine the citizenship issue. A booth level officer (BLO) has no right to inquire into the citizenship of a voter,” he said. Arguments would continue Thursday.
