Supreme Court dismisses arguments questioning Election Commission's power to conduct SIR

Advocate Singhvi contended there is no power. He claimed the court has done a lot of work to give a healing touch to the matter, but in that way, the law has been forgotten.

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday said it does not agree to a contention that the Election Commission lacked the power to conduct the special intensive revision of electoral rolls.

The top court maintained that if a process is fair and transparent, it can be adopted by the poll body.

A bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi found the submissions advanced by senior advocate A M Singhvi, representing parties opposing SIR, unconvincing.

"If we go by the submission, the Election Commission will never have the power to conduct the special intensive survey. It is not a routine or ordinary updating of the electoral roll; this is a special survey, SIR, unless the rule or statute itself contemplates the procedure to be followed. Any process, which should be fair enough and transparent, that can be adopted by the commission,” the bench said.

“If there is no power of survey, the matter ends then the rules will not create that power,” the bench added.

Singhvi contended there is no power. He claimed the court has done a lot of work to give a healing touch to the matter, but in that way, the law has been forgotten.

The power of ECI under Section 21(3) of the Representation of the People Act (ROPA) to direct a special revision of the electoral roll for any constituency or part of a constituency, as it may think fit, but it cannot be interpreted as an en masse exercise, he said.

Singhvi contended that Article 324 does authorise the commission to exercise powers of superintendence, direction, and control of the preparation of electoral rolls, and the conduct of elections to the Parliament and state legislatures.

“But then the article has to be read harmoniously with the articles that follow, that is Article 327, the commission in the garb of passing orders for regulating the conduct of elections cannot take upon itself the purely legislative activity, which has been reserved under the scheme of the Constitution, only to the Parliament and state legislatures,” he said.

In all these 75 years, one was required to fill out a form first, and then the poll body will presumptively retain the person on the list or have him removed. “This is a substantive change, which can only be done by legislature,” he said.

He said there was a form in June 2025, used in Bihar SIR, and it says 11 or 12 documents were required, and that form can be prescribed only by legislation under the Act, through parliamentary law in the form of rules, and Article 324 does not plug that gap.

Earlier, senior advocate Kapil Sibal, representing a party opposing SIR, had argued that it is a dangerous proposition and unreasonable to deploy BLO (booth level officer), usually a school teacher, to determine the citizenship of a person.

It was vehemently argued that the Prevention of Corruption Act and the Representation of the People Act form the statutory basis for disqualifying a person from the electoral roll, and a BLO cannot decide on this.

The court will hear on Tuesday the batch of matter, challenging validity of SIR exercise.