[This is Part 1 of a two-part series which was originally published as a single article in The Wire on October 9, 2026. Part 2 will be published in next week’s issue. Reproduced with kind permission.]

MAKING it to the final electoral rolls after negotiating the labyrinthine processes of Special Intensive Revision (SIR) is no guarantee of citizenship, liberty or even peace of mind, especially, if you happen to be a Bangla-speaking follower of the Islamic faith, it seems.

In August this year, a group of 23 migrant labourers from Murshidabad district of West Bengal, who went to Chhattisgarh in search of livelihood opportunities, were detained by the local police on suspicion of being Bangladeshis. Ironically, all of them had made it to the final voter lists at the end of the SIR in West Bengal.

Subsequently, 19 were released on the orders of a Bilaspur civil court. The remaining four continue to languish in a detention centre because their names were deleted from the final voter list. Their appeals are pending before the tribunals set up on the directions of the Supreme Court. 

According to Justice Indrajit Chatterjee, who heads one such appellate tribunal, four out of every ten appeals against the inclusion of names in the final electoral rolls have been filed, not by private citizens or booth level agents of political parties, but by the state’s additional chief electoral officer (ACEO). Why the CEO’s office has challenged the outcome of its own ‘robust’ decision-making process is a mystery.

Having taken up the case of those four labourers, last month, the Calcutta high court reportedly asked, whether the Election Commission of India (ECI) was “playing with the people,” implying why there was no finality to the “final electoral rolls”. The court is also said to have asked how the Foreigners Regional Registration Officer (FRRO) could make a decision about the citizenship status of the petitioners. 

This author asked similar questions under RTI about the outcome of the SIR completed first in Bihar and later in 12 states and Union Territories. The responses of the ECI and the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) reveal the ‘state of play’, vis-à-vis ‘ineligible persons’ who were targeted for deletion as part of the voter list shuddhikaran (purification) process.

The point is nothing appears to have been done despite the directions of the Supreme Court to the ECI to refer such cases to the competent authority for citizenship adjudication. The MHA itself does not seem to know who is the authority competent to adjudicate such matters.

Details of the context in which these RTI interventions were made and the responses received by the author are given below, for readers who wish to know more.

THE CONTEXT OF THE RTI INTERVENTIONS

The ECI provided the justification for launching the SIR in its order dated June 24, 2025. Although SIR was rolled out only in Bihar in the first phase, the omnibus nature of the ECI’s order is clear from para ten which reads as follows:

“Therefore, the Commission has now decided to begin the Special Intensive Revision in the entire country for the discharge of its constitutional mandate to protect the integrity of the electoral rolls; However, since the General Elections to the Legislative Assembly in the State of Bihar is expected in later part of this year, hence the Commission has decided to conduct Special Intensive Revision in the State of Bihar as per the Guidelines and schedule attached herewith. The schedule for the Special Intensive Revision in the rest of the country shall be issued separately in due course.” 

This omnibus order is included as an annexure in the instructions issued by the ECI for rolling out phase II and phase III of the SIR also. The paragraphs five-eight of this order contain the justification for initiating the SIR across the country as follows:

“5. Whereas, the preparation of electoral roll must ensure that all eligible citizens are included and no such eligible citizen is excluded from the electoral roll;

6. Whereas, the Article 326 of the constitution stipulates that every person who is a citizen of India and who is not less than eighteen years of age on the qualifying date and is not otherwise disqualified under any law shall be entitled to be registered in the electoral roll;

7. Whereas, the commission has noted that during the last 20 years significant change in electoral roll has taken place due to additions and deletions on a large scale over this long period. Rapid urbanisation and frequent migration of population from one place to another on account of education, livelihood and other reasons, have become a regular trend. Some electors obtain registration in one place and then shift their residence and register themselves at another place without getting their names deleted from the electoral roll of the initial place of residence. This has led to increased possibility of repeated entries in the electoral roll. Thus, the situation warrants an intensive verification drive to verify each person before enrolment as an Elector;

8. Whereas, one of the fundamental pre-conditions set out in Article 326 of the constitution is that a person is required to be an Indian citizen, for his/her name to be registered in the electoral roll. Consequently, the commission has a constitutional obligation to ensure that only persons who are citizens;

Readers may kindly note, the last segment of para 8 stops mid-sentence. The omnibus order attached as an annexure to the instructions issued for SIR phases II and III (page number eight in both documents) contains the same dangling phrase.

We are not certain, if this omnibus order was produced before the Supreme Court of India with this incomplete sentence, in the matter of Association for Democratic Reforms & Ors., vs Election Commission of India & Ors. [neutral citation: 2026 INSC 564] where SIR’s legality was challenged. 

Be that as it may, in May 2026, the apex court upheld the omnibus SIR order and the accompanying instructions for rolling it out as a valid framework for achieving the objectives laid out by the ECI. The following paras extracted from the judgement are illustrative of the court’s justification for upholding the SIR’s constitutionality and legality:

“In our considered view, the objective sought to be achieved by the Commission, namely, the restoration of accuracy, completeness, and integrity of the electoral roll, is not only legitimate but is integral to the constitutional mandate entrusted to it. The reasons furnished by the Commission cannot be characterised as extraneous or illusory; they bear a direct and rational nexus to the core function of maintaining a credible electoral process. We are, therefore, unable to accept the contention that the Impugned SIR is devoid of a legitimate purpose. On the contrary, the exercise is firmly anchored in both constitutional principle and statutory design.” (para 69)

“… it must be recognised that the objective sought to be achieved in the instant case, namely, the maintenance of an accurate and credible electoral roll, is of foundational importance to the democratic process. The integrity of elections is inextricably linked to the correctness of the electoral roll, and any systemic distortion therein strikes at the very root of representative governance.” (para 89)

“Section 16 of the RP Act explicitly disqualifies non-citizens from being registered in the electoral roll. The consequence of this provision is clear: Citizenship is a condition precedent for enrolment. The Commission, therefore, cannot discharge its obligation to maintain a valid electoral roll without satisfying itself that persons included therein meet this threshold requirement.” (para 173)

“…Where the material furnished by an individual does not inspire confidence or give rise to doubt, the Commission is within its authority to decline enrolment or to initiate action for deletion, strictly in accordance with law…” (para 176)

So, the Supreme Court agreed with the ECI’s primary objectives for launching the SIR, namely, that only such persons who are citizens of India and qualified to be voters must be enrolled as electors and those who are ineligible on account of not being able to prove to the ECI’s satisfaction that they are Indian citizens, must be removed or refused enrolment. 

But the court also said that the ECI can determine the eligibility of an individual by seeking supportive documentation only for the limited purpose of deciding whether or not he/she may be enrolled as a voter under the Representation of the People Act, 1950. The ultimate determination of the citizenship status of people left out of the voter lists, for the purposes of the Citizenship Act, 1955 was left to the ‘competent authority’. The relevant paras from the court’s judgement are reproduced below:

“It must be acknowledged that the formal determination of citizenship, particularly where it entails adjudication of status or deprivation thereof, falls within the exclusive domain of the Competent Authority under the Citizenship Act. There can be no dispute that such a determination cannot be undertaken by the Commission, whose powers are circumscribed by the constitutional and statutory framework governing electoral rolls.” (para 171)

“…In our considered view, there is a clear and principled distinction between an adjudication of citizenship on the one hand, and an administrative satisfaction as to eligibility for enrolment on the other. The former involves a conclusive determination of status under the Citizenship Act; the latter is a limited enquiry undertaken for the purposes of electoral representation.” (para 174)

“The consequence of such a determination is correspondingly limited. It affects the individual’s entitlement to be included in the electoral roll, and thereby their right to participate in the electoral process. It does not, however, operate to divest the individual of claims of citizenship, nor does it foreclose a determination of that question by the Competent Authority under the Citizenship Act.” (para 177)

“Moreover, in cases where the Commission is not satisfied that a person meets the statutory conditions for inclusion in the electoral roll, it would be incumbent upon it to refer such an individual to the competent authority within the Central Government for adjudication in accordance with law. The Commission’s determination, being confined to electoral purposes, cannot assume finality on the question of citizenship. Any deletion effected on this ground shall, therefore, remain subject to the outcome of such adjudication by the appropriate authority.” (para 178)

So, the apex court reasoned that the ECI can only decide whether or not a person must be enrolled or deleted from the voter list but the issue of determining whether or not such a person is a citizen of India as per the Citizenship Act, 1955 must be left to the ‘competent authority’. In this regard, towards the end of the judgement, the Supreme Court directed the ECI to do the following:

“h. Regarding persons whose names have been deleted from the 2003 roll on account of the Commission being of the opinion that they are not citizens, the Commission shall refer such cases within 4 weeks to the Competent authority under the Citizenship Act, 1955, for adjudication of their citizenship. The Competent Authority shall take the necessary decision in accordance with law, preferably before the next Parliamentary, Assembly, Local Body elections, whichever is earlier, after giving notice and an opportunity of hearing to the deleted individuals, if any. In the event the Competent Authority holds that such deleted individuals are citizens, they shall be included in the electoral roll. In addition thereto, all persons who are domiciled in Bihar and whose names have been erroneously deleted on the ground that they are absent, dead, shifted or in duplication may assail the decision of the Commission by way of judicial review.” (para 186)

In other words, the apex court placed a binding duty on the ECI to refer all cases of persons who in its opinion are not citizens, for the limited purpose of voting, within the specific time frame of four weeks to the ‘competent authority’ under the Citizenship Act, 1955.

PURPOSE OF THE TWIN RTI INTERVENTIONS

On August 10, this author filed two RTI applications to ascertain compliance with the Supreme Court’s directions. The first was submitted to the ECI and the second, to the Union Ministry of Home Affairs which is the administrative ministry for ensuring the Citizenship Act’s effective implementation. The purpose of the RTI interventions was two-fold:

a) to probe whether the ECI had complied with the Court’s time-bound directions; and

b) to find out from the MHA, who is the competent authority identified for adjudicating the citizenship status of persons referred to by the ECI and whether that process had begun at all.

To be continued next week

Venkatesh Nayak is Director, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, New Delhi.