As Bihar readies to vote, petitioners in Supreme Court contest the ECI’s claim that SIR 2025 is based on ‘transparent’ 2003 revision

By the first phase of polling in Bihar on November 6, he witnessed the Election Commission of India (ECI) angrily defending Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in the Supreme Court; The petitioners, however, questioned the poll agency’s claim that the current practice was part of a “transparent” massive 2003 revision of the State’s electoral rolls.

The final list released at the end of SIR on September 30 witnessed the removal of 3.66 lakh names. Opposition parties questioned the SIR practice and demanded that the ECI explain the reasons for excluding these names.

However, the ECI’s order dated June 24 had stated that the SIR was conducted only after political parties raised concerns over inaccuracies in the voter rolls. He had reasoned that SIR was necessary due to mass migration and urbanization and was only necessary to ensure citizens were registered to vote. The Commission reasoned that “the absence of any intensive revision for almost two decades requires more rigorous and fundamental work.”

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The pollster had said that SIR 2025 was just a repetition of an exercise that was carried out regularly until 2003. The ECI had used the 2003 electoral roll as “probative evidence of eligibility, including presumption of citizenship”. In fact, the ECI had said in the massive revision in 2003 that registered voters did not need to attach any additional documents along with their census forms except the list summary. The ECI had even submitted in a counter affidavit before the apex court that “such children who gain eligibility by virtue of adulthood post-2003 are only required to produce evidence of their association with voters whose names appear in the 2003 electoral rolls”.

The last intensive overhaul in Bihar was completed in 2003 with January 1, 2003 as the elimination date. In its decision dated June 24, the ECI had mentioned the massive revision in 2003 as a “precedent and template” for the 2025 SIR.

Interestingly, one of the petitioners, Association for Democratic Reforms, represented by advocates Prashant Bhushan and Neha Rathi, had told the court that the ECI had “never brought on record the original documents of the Special Revision of Intensive Nature held in 2003, which it claims to be precedent and deduction”.

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The petitioner had unearthed the records of the 2003 roll revision to reveal a 62-page document titled ‘Intensive Special Revision of Electoral Rolls with Qualification Date 01.01.2003, Final Guide’ to discover that the 2003 application was “fundamentally different” from the current 2025 SIR application.

The petitioners cited five “fundamental differences” between the 2003 massive revision and SIR 2025. Firstly, in 2003 the responsibility for entering eligible names in the electoral rolls was entirely on the Enumeration Officer (now called Booth Level Officer) and not on the voter as in SIR 2025.

Secondly, there was no counting form to be filled by voters and, accordingly, no deadline to be met by potential voters, as in SIR 2025. The enumerator, in consultation with the head of household or senior adult member of the family, had conducted a house-to-house survey to verify, add or amend existing voter rolls.

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Third, unlike SIR 2025, in 2003 there was no blanket requirement for all potential voters to submit at least one document.

Again, in 2003 there was no general authority to verify the citizenship of every voter. The 2003 Guidelines permitted citizenship inquiries only in the case of persons declared ‘aliens’ by the competent courts.

Finally, the massive revision provisions of 2003, unlike SIR 2025, did not allow the exclusion of any name from pre-existing lists without going through the process required to delete the names.

The Supreme Court is scheduled to hold a hearing on the constitutionality of the Bihar SIR on November 4. However, Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi, who formed the Bench hearing the case, were part of the Constitution Bench and did not meet on Tuesday.