ECI has no jurisdiction to determine questions of citizenship, petitioners tell SC-OxBig News Network

Bihar is just the first stage, and there is a risk that the special intensive revision (SIR) will be implemented nationwide, senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan argued during the hearing in the Supreme Court on Thursday (July 10, 2025).

“The ECI has stated that the schedule for other States will be announced later. This effectively shifts the burden onto individuals to prove their citizenship,” he added.

Senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan, who spoke for the petitioners on Thursday, said the process of intensive revision was carried out in a slapdash manner in Bihar. The special intensive revision was completed in just 30 days, he noted, and only 11 documents were considered. Shockingly, both Aadhaar and voter ID cards were ignored, he added.

‘Ill-timed and hasty’

The petitioners have urged the top court to seek an explanation from the Election Commission for the “ill-timed and hasty” conduct of the SIR exercise in Bihar.

A Supreme Court Bench of Justices Sudhanshu Dhulia and Joymalya Bagchi heard a batch of petitions challenging the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral roll underway in poll-bound Bihar. Over 10 petitions filed by Opposition leaders, activists, NGOs and lawyers have been listed before the Bench, which had agreed to urgently list the case on July 10. 

 The petitions have argued that an interim order from the apex court staying the June 24 notification announcing the SIR was necessary as crores of voters, drawn from the poor and marginalised sections of the society, were put on a tight leash to produce documents to prove their domicile or face the prospect of disenfranchisement.

Disallowing Aadhaar risks mass disenfranchisement, senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for the petitioners, argued on Thursday. Referring to ​Section 19 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950​, which lays down the conditions for voter registration, he noted that anyone who is 18 years or older on the qualifying date and is ordinarily resident in a constituency is entitled to be registered in the electoral roll. It is for the authorities, he argued, to prove that a person is not a citizen, not the other way around.

SIR exercise is a ploy for citizenship screening: Singhvi

Abhishek Manu Singhvi, senior advocate representing one of the petitioners, criticised the exclusion of Aadhaar from the list of accepted documents, pointing out that it is a statutorily recognised form of identification. He noted that this is the first time Aadhaar has been disregarded, despite the government’s sustained push for its adoption.

He further contended that the SIR exercise is being used as a proxy for conducting a citizenship screening.