ECI’s SIR order for 9 states and 3 UTs a ‘copy-paste’ of Bihar notification, lacks application of mind: Tamil Nadu to SC

The Supreme Court on Thursday was told that the Election Commission of India’s October 27, 2025, order for Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls in nine states and three Union Territories was a copy-paste of the July 24, 2025 Bihar SIR order, issued without “demonstratable application of mind”, with the Commission acting as a “suspicious policeman” over the voters.

Stating that the October 27 ECI order for SIR in nine states and three Union Territories was a reproduction of the July 24 Bihar SIR order, senior advocate Raju Ramachandran told the bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi that the Election Commission’s role is to act as an “enabler” — facilitating voters’ inclusion in electoral rolls and participation in the democratic process — but instead, it is acting as a “disabler”.

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“The manner in which the Election Commission of India (ECI) is attempting to conduct a Special Intensive Revision (SIR), (it) …, is disabling the right to vote and excluding electors. This militates against the Constitutional role assigned to the ECI to protect the right to vote under Article 326, and the Representation of the People Act, 1950 (RPA) – S. 16 and S. 19”, senior advocate Raju Ramachandran appearing for the Tamil Nadu government told the bench.

Referring to the reasons cited for the SIR in nine states and three Union Territories—namely, rapid urbanisation and migration, which could result in a voter appearing on electoral rolls in more than one place—Ramachandran said these could not justify an intensive revision, as they did not constitute any ‘surprise situation’ warranting such an exercise. He added that the ECI cannot take recourse to its reserve power under Article 324 to determine the citizenship of a voter, as this field is already governed by an existing statutory framework.

“When there is a statutory scheme to deal with suspected citizens, what is the authority of the EC to usurp the power and suspend the citizenship?” Ramachandran argued, adding that “Article 324 is a reserve power to deal with surprise situations and not to overthrow the statutory and constitutional shackles.”

The Election Commission has no power to “suspect the citizenship of a citizen and suspend the citizenship”, the senior advocate said, wondering: “Can EC play a vigilante role?”

Referring to the observations from the bench, whether the EC has no inquisitive role of going into the citizenship of a voter, Raju Ramachandra said, “My answer is no. EC must start with a position of trust and not the suspicion of a policeman.”

As the senior advocate read from the Election Commission’s October 27 order, which focused on intra-country migration, Justice Bagchi said that the issue could also extend to inter-country migration into India from other countries. “Can the movement of people from across the border not be considered migration?” Justice Bagchi asked the senior advocate.

Ramachandran said he was not disputing the Election Commission’s reference to urbanisation and migration driven by education or the search for livelihood. However, he described the Commission’s interpretation of cross-border migration in its July 24 order as an “extra-charitable” reading.

“Illegal immigration is a well-known expression in social and political circles, but the July 24 order was an intra-country migration,” the senior advocate said.

Referring to Section 21(3) of the Representation of People Act, 1950, which says, “Notwithstanding anything contained in sub-section (2), the Election Commission may at any time, for reasons to be recorded, direct a special revision of the electoral roll for any constituency or part of a constituency in such manner as it may think fit,” Ramachandran said that the exercise of this power “can extend to more than one constituency or many or even to an entire state, but can we stretch it to nine states and three Union Territories”.

He questioned the manner in which the EC was going about the exercise in a hurry, even in states like Chhattisgarh, where assembly elections are due in December 2028, and not in the states going to polls much earlier. He termed as “very facile, easy and lazy” the EC’s assumption that the reasons of urbanisation and migration applicable to Bihar could extend to nine states and three Union Territories undergoing the SIR exercise.

As CJI Kant referred to his visit to Andaman, where out of a population of 25,000, more than 20,000 were outsiders, and lived very congenially, the senior advocate said that was the CJI’s personal experience. However, he argued, such an extension of the SIR to nine states and three UTs cannot be a copy-paste order of October 27.

The bench said that the reasons for the conduct of SIR may have been deliberated earlier, and the exercise started with Bihar and now extended to nine states and three Union Territories.

In the course of the hearing, Justice Bagchi clarified that the question coming from them was not an expression of opinion but an exercise to get clarity on the points being made in the course of the arguments and termed it as “dialectical discussion”.

“It is a dialectical discussion to get the best,” Justice Bagchi said in an attempt to clear any cloud over the dialogue between the bench and the arguing lawyer.

The hearing will now resume on Tuesday, December 16, when senior advocate Rakesah Dwivedi, representing the Election Commission, will advance his arguments, which, he said, may last for three days.