SC says ECI's roll revision drive mandated in Constitution, but questions timing

The Supreme Court on Thursday questioned the Election Commission of India on the timing of the Special Intensive Revision drive in poll-bound Bihar saying it went to the "root of democracy and power to vote" while rejecting the argument that the poll panel did not have any power to carry it out.

The ECI also justified the exercise and said Aadhaar wasn't a "proof of citizenship".

A bench of Justices Sudhanshu Dhulia and Joymalya Bagchi questioned Dwivedi over the exclusion of Aadhaar card in the SIR drive in Bihar and said the ECI had nothing to do with citizenship of a person and it was the Ministry of Home Affairs' domain.

Dwivedi responded while referring to Article 326 of the Constitution and said every voter has to be an Indian citizen and "Aadhaar card is not proof of citizenship".

Justice Dhulia said, “If you are to check citizenship under SIR of electoral rolls in Bihar, then you should have acted early; it is a bit late.” The bench, in the meantime, rejected the submission of the petitioners’ counsel that the ECI did not have power to conduct any such exercise in Bihar for it was mandated under the Constitution and the last such exercise happened in 2003.

While referring to the petitioners' contentions, the bench said the ECI had to answer three questions as the SIR exercise in Bihar went to "root of democracy and power to vote".

The questions of the petitioners, including political parties and their leaders aside from civil society members and organisations, deal with the ECI's power to conduct such an exercise and its timing.

Dwivedi said with passage of time, electoral rolls need to be revised to look into inclusion or exclusion of voter names with the SIR being the one exercise to do it.

He asked if the ECI did not have the power to revise the electoral roll then who did.

The poll panel, however, assured the top court of not leaving out anyone from the voter list without an opportunity to be heard.

Earlier in the day, the top court commenced hearing on a batch of pleas challenging the Election Commission's decision to undertake a special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in poll-bound Bihar.

Senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan, appearing for one of the petitioners, said the revision of electoral rolls can be permitted under the Representation of People Act.

The entire SIR will cover around 7.9 crore citizens, he said, and even the voter ID and Aadhaar cards are not being considered.

Over 10 petitions have been filed in the SC, including one by NGO 'Association for Democratic Reforms', the lead petitioner.

RJD MP Manoj Jha and Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra, Congress' K C Venugopal, NCP (SP) leader Supriya Sule, CPI leader D Raja, Samajwadi Party's Harinder Singh Malik, Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Arvind Sawant, JMM's Sarfraz Ahmed and Dipankar Bhattacharya of CPI (ML) have also moved the top court, seeking direction for quashing the EC order.