Bihar SIR process voter-friendly: Supreme Court says 11 documents better than 7
The Supreme Court on Wednesday described Bihar’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls as “voter-friendly,” highlighting its expansion of acceptable identity documents and rejecting concerns about Aadhaar exclusion.
“They are expanding the number of documents of identity. We understand your exclusionary arguments maybe with respect to Aadhaar, but the expansion of documents followed by SIR is in fact voter-friendly and not exclusionary,” the bench observed. “It gives them more options. From 7, there are now 11 documents.”
The court also examined whether an enumeration form that encompasses the statutory form could be considered contradictory or more inclusive. “If an enumeration form takes within its fold the statutory form, will it be in violation or a more inclusive compliance?” the bench asked.
Senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, representing the petitioners, accused the Election Commission of India (ECI) of reversing its position on citizenship proof. “ECI has completely turned 180 on citizenship proof. Someone has to be the objector and say X person is not a citizen. Then ERO issues a notice and gives time for me to respond. How will you do all the macro-judicial tasks in 2 months? Do the SIR from December onwards and take a full year nobody will be against it,” Singhvi said.
He stressed that even under Form 6, Aadhaar remains a valid document for enrolment. “They have turned the presumption on its head presumptively they say you are all excluded unless you can prove otherwise,” he added, warning that “everyone enrolled after 2003–2025 is presumptively considered to be excluded unless they can prove.”