New Delhi : The Supreme Court opened final arguments on Wednesday in a batch of petitions contesting the Election Commission’s push for a Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls across several states. Just because a person was granted Aadhaar for ration, should he be made a voter also? Suppose someone belongs to a neighbouring country and works as a labourer, shall he be allowed to vote?” the CJI asked.
The Supreme Court rejected the suggestion that the poll body must function like a “post office” and automatically accept every Form 6 submission. “You are saying the Election Commission is a post office that must accept the Form 6 submitted and include your name,” the bench asked.
Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, representing some petitioners, argued that the SIR process imposes an unconstitutional burden on ordinary voters, many of whom may struggle with paperwork and face the risk of deletion. He stressed that the exercise “affects democracy” at its core. The bench, however, observed that the claim that such a revision has never been conducted before cannot be used to undermine the EC’s authority to run the exercise. It said any deletion from the voter list must be preceded by proper notice.
The EC must respond to the Tamil Nadu petitions by December 1, followed by rejoinders within two days, ahead of a December 4 hearing. Pleas from Kerala will be heard on December 2, with the poll panel’s reply due on December 1. Cases involving West Bengal — where a few booth-level officers have allegedly died by suicide — will come up on December 9.
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