Congress flags ‘contradictions’ in Supreme Court judgement on SIR

New Delhi: Congress on Wednesday said the Supreme Court judgement on the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral has raised more questions than it has answered while one of the petitioners, Yogendra Yadav, claimed that the outcome was a “forgone conclusion” while alleging that the ruling BJP will decide “who can vote and who cannot”.

Soon after the Supreme Court delivered a judgement upholding SIR, Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar said, “the first step for nation building is voting. Therefore, every citizen of India who has completed 18 years of age should become an elector and should always vote...The Election Commission is, was and will always be with the voters.”

Addressing a press conference, senior Congress MP and lawyer Abhishek Singhvi referred to the Supreme Court’s observation that the Election Commission cannot take a decision on citizenship and it can be done only by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).

“First, the court says that the formal and final determination of citizenship cannot be made by the EC. That authority lies with the competent authority under the Citizenship Act, primarily the MHA. That finding means that the final decision on citizenship will still be made later and wherever there is doubt regarding citizenship, the EC must refer the matter to the MHA,” he said.

“But look at the irony. Before this final determination, the EC has already excluded people on the basis of citizenship, while the actual decision on citizenship will only be made later by another authority. Is this not a contradiction? Should this not have been noticed and commented upon by the Supreme Court?” he asked.

He said that the timeline for the SIR “excessively compressed” and referred to a process involving crores of voters within four to five months in states like Bihar and West Bengal. “The simple question is why could the EC not begin the SIR process earlier for future elections? Nobody is questioning the concept itself,” he said.

“Another contradiction is that people are first removed from the voter list, and only later comes the adjudication of whether that removal was justified. By the time appeals are heard and decisions are made, elections may already be over. That is a major deprivation, and it deserved a much stronger comment from the Supreme Court,” he said.

Yadav said on ‘X’ that  the significance of the ruling extended beyond the legal validation of the SIR. “The real news is that now in this country, the BJP will decide who can vote and who cannot," he alleged.

“I did not go to the Supreme Court today to hear its order in the SIR case. As a litigant in this case, and as someone who was given the honour of addressing the court, I should have been hopeful, anxious, or at least curious. I was not. The case was decided long ago. We were only waiting for the transcript and its fine print,” he said.

“The course of this case was settled in August last year. Having heard arguments against SIR for three days, the court moved away from examining the constitutionality of SIR and effectively converted itself into a Consumer Forum, focused on grievance redressal and arbitration, rather than constitutional principles,” he claimed.

He said there was little left of this case once the EC proceeded with the SIR while the court heard arguments about its constitutionality. “SIR had become a fait accompli. Any remaining doubt disappeared when the Hon’ble judges observed in open court that no one would be allowed to obstruct SIR,” he added. 

Senior lawyer Prashant Bhushan said, “by the SIR judgement, the SC virtually gives a blank cheque to a totally partisan ECI to do what it wants with electoral rolls without even any transparency. It portends ill for our democracy and is a dark day for the SC.”