New Delhi, November 27, 2025 – In a probing interrogation that underscored the delicate balance between welfare access and electoral integrity, the Supreme Court of India on Wednesday questioned whether illegal immigrants or "intruders" from neighboring countries, armed merely with Aadhaar cards for subsidized benefits, could be extended voting rights. The bench, led by Chief Justice Surya Kant alongside Justice Joymalya Bagchi, was hearing petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the Election Commission's Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, a contentious exercise aimed at cleansing voter lists across multiple states.
The court's rhetorical salvo came amid arguments from senior advocate Kapil Sibal, representing the states of West Bengal and Kerala, who decried the SIR process as "hasty, unreasonable, and exclusionary." Sibal contended that the drive unconstitutionally shifts the burden of proof onto existing voters, compelling them to submit enumeration forms to reaffirm their citizenship—a move he labeled as antithetical to India's inclusive democratic ethos. "There is a presumption. A self-declaration, I am a citizen. I live here. There is an Aadhaar card that I have. That’s my residence. You want to take it away, take it away through a process," Sibal urged the bench, emphasizing the plight of illiterate and marginalized voters, particularly women in rural areas, who risk exclusion.
Chief Justice Kant, responding to Sibal's defense of Aadhaar as a valid residency proof, drew a stark distinction between social welfare and suffrage. "Suppose there are persons who intrude from a different country, from neighbouring countries they come to India, they are working in India, staying in India, somebody working as a poor rickshaw-puller, somebody working as a labourer on a construction site, if you issue an Aadhaar card to him so that he can avail benefit of subsidised ration or for any benefit, that’s something part of our constitutional ethos, that is our constitutional morality. But does it mean that because he has been given this benefit, he must now be made a voter also?" the CJI remarked. He further clarified that while Aadhaar, created under statute, is undisputed for welfare privileges, it cannot automatically confer voting eligibility, especially for non-citizens.
The hearing spotlighted the SIR's second phase, underway in states including Kerala, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Bihar, and Puducherry, affecting over 51 crore potential voters. Launched to weed out duplicates, deceased individuals, and ineligible entries from electoral rolls, the exercise has sparked political furor, with opposition parties alleging it's a covert citizenship verification tool that could disenfranchise genuine voters ahead of local polls. Petitioners highlighted instances of erroneous deletions, including voters mistakenly marked as "dead" by booth-level officers (BLOs), and argued that empowering BLOs to preliminarily assess citizenship violates due process.
Defending the initiative, senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi, appearing for the Election Commission of India (ECI), asserted that the process is nearly complete in key regions, with 99% of forms distributed and over 50% digitized in Kerala. "The State Election Commission and the Election Commission of India are collaborating... There is no problem," Dwivedi submitted, urging the court not to halt the drive. Justice Bagchi reinforced the ECI's jurisdiction, noting its "inherent" power under Section 21 of the Representation of the People Act and Article 326 of the Constitution to verify voter credentials. "The EC says there are certain entries which are of doubtful integrity. In that spirit, the EC makes an endeavour. How can we say that there was a complete lack of jurisdiction?" the judge observed, adding that BLOs act not as final arbiters but as preliminary screeners, with draft rolls published for public objections.
The bench reflected on the Bihar SIR pilot, where only about three lakh names were deleted amid widespread media coverage and legal aid mobilization, yielding minimal challenges. CJI Kant quipped on rural awareness: "It cannot be just assumed that the people in rural areas and marginalised sections were clueless about their voting rights. They are more vigilant than the urban voters… The day of voting is a cause for celebration in rural areas." Justice Bagchi stressed the necessity of purging "dead voters" to prevent electoral imbalances, warning that unchecked lists could skew outcomes in favor of dominant parties.
In prior rulings, the Supreme Court had mandated Aadhaar's inclusion as the "12th document" for voter verification during the Bihar phase, balancing identity proof with citizenship checks. However, the current proceedings revisit these tensions, with the bench lamenting the scarcity of "bonafide" exclusion cases: "If there are instances where a person is a bonafide resident, a citizen of India, if he has been excluded, we have been eagerly, desperately looking for those instances so that we could rectify the procedural error."
The court directed the ECI to file counter-affidavits on pleas from Tamil Nadu (hearing fixed for December 4), West Bengal (December 9), and Kerala (December 2, on priority due to impending local body elections on December 9 and 11). It signaled openness to extending the draft roll publication deadline—set for December 9—if petitioners demonstrate procedural lapses, affirming: "The court can always say [to extend the date]."
As the SIR enumeration phase races toward its December 4 cutoff, the verdict could redefine safeguards against voter fraud while safeguarding democratic participation, in a nation where over 96 crore are enrolled to vote. Legal experts anticipate the hearings will clarify Aadhaar's role in elections, potentially influencing the 2026 assembly polls in several states.
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