SC SET TO STUDY SIR PROVISIONS INDEPENDENTLY

The Supreme Court on Thursday indicated that the Election Commission of India (ECI) may need to justify the process followed in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, as the Court continued hearing a series of petitions challenging the legality of the exercise.

- FPJ News Service

A Bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi, hearing arguments through the afternoon, said it would interpret the statutory provisions independently and not only based on what the ECI had done. The matter will now be heard on Tuesday, Live Law and Bar & Bench report.

The challenge centres on whether the ECI can conduct an en masse verification of voters under Article 324 of the Constitution when the Representation of the People Act (RP Act) and the rules framed under it provide for an individual, constituency-based revision. Senior Advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, arguing for PUCL and several political parties, insisted that the SIR form and the process itself must come from delegated legislation and not from the "Plugging of loopholes here and there will not help... What is not law remains not a law," he submitted. The Bench engaged extensively with Singhvi's arguments. When he said that the ECI had no power to conduct the SIR in the present form, CJI Kant responded, "Going by your argument, the ECI will never have the power of SIR...