SC upholds SIR, ‘breathes life’ into fair polls mandate

EC TOLD TO REFER DELETED NAMES TO ‘COMPETENT AUTHORITY’

- ANANTHAKRISHNAN G

UPHOLDING THE LEGAL validity of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls being carried out by the Election Commission of India (ECI), the Supreme Court said on Wednesday the exercise is “intended to secure the constitutional mandate of free and fair elections by ensuring that the roll on which the election rests is accurate and reliable”, and that the ECI has “provided cogent justifications warranting the... process”.

The bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi, ruling on a clutch of petitions challenging the SIR exercise, which began with Bihar, said it “breathes life” into the mandate for fair polls.

It directed the ECI to refer the names of those deleted from the 2003 rolls following the SIR of rolls to the competent authority within four weeks “for adjudication of their citizenship”, noting that the poll panel’s “determination, being confined to electoral purposes, cannot assume finality on the question of citizenship”.

It said the SIR exercise was “not in conflict” with the Representation of the People Act, 1950, or the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960, but was “undertaken to advance the very objective which Part XV (dealing with the framework for election) of the Constitution is designed to protect”.