Bihar SIR: Supreme Court Suggests Election Commission Accept Aadhaar, Voter ID, Ration Cards

The Wire

10-07-2025

The bench said that the EC had nothing to do with citizenship of a person and that it was the Ministry of Home Affairs' domain.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court today (July 10) asked the Election Commission to consider accepting the Aadhaar card, voter ID card and ration cards for its rolls revision exercise in Bihar.
The Election Commission had, earlier in the day, told the apex court that Aadhaar card is not a proof of citizenship as the apex court heard petitions challenging the special intensive revision of electoral rolls ahead of assembly polls in the state.
"...[I]n our prima facie view, since the list is not exhaustive, in our opinion, it will be in the interest of justice, the ECI will also consider the Aadhaar card, Electoral Photo Identity Card issued by the Election Commission and the ration card," LiveLaw reported the apex court as having said. It clarified that the EC will enjoy discretion in accepting or rejecting names irrespective of whether it considers these documents.
The bench questioned Senior Advocate Rakesh Dwivedi who was representing the EC on the exclusion of Aadhaar card and said, crucially, that the EC had nothing to do with citizenship of a person and it was the Ministry of Home Affairs' domain.
"But citizenship is an issue to be determined not by the Election Commission of India, but by the MHA," Justice Dhulia said.
When Dwivedi said, "We have powers under Article 326," the bench made an observation on the timing.
"Your decision let us say to disenfranchise the person who is already there on the electoral roll of 2025 would compel this individual to appeal against decision and go through this entire rigmarole and thereby be denied of his right to vote in the ensuing election. There is nothing wrong in you purging electoral rolls through an intensive exercise in order to see that non-citizens don't remain on the role. But if you decide only a couple of months before a proposed election..." Justice Bagchi said.
The court had allowed the urgent listing of several petitions today. More than 10 petitions are being heard at the apex court. The Association for Democratic Reforms, the NGO, is the lead petitioner. Most other petitioners are opposition leaders including Rashtriya Janata Dal MP Manoj Jha, Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra, Congress leader K.C. Venugopal, Nationalist Congress Party (Sharad Pawar) leader Supriya Sule, Communist Party of India leader D. Raja, Samajwadi Party leader Harinder Singh Malik, Shiv Sena (Uddhav Bal Thackeray) leader Arvind Sawant, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha leader Sarfraz Ahmed and Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) Liberation leader Dipankar Bhattacharya.
A partial working days bench of Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia and Justice Joymalya Bagchi has asked the EC to respond by July 21 and will hear the petitions again on July 28.
The court also noted that the petitions asked a question that went to the "very root of the functioning of the democracy in the country – the right to vote."
The court said that three questions were involved. One, the EC's power and whether it could undertake the exercise, two, the procedure and the manner of the exercise of the power and three, its timing. On the third point, the court said that it was very short as the Bihar elections are due in November.
To Senior Advocate Gopal Sankaranarayan's detailed argument on the fact that the EC is attempting what is an extra-constitutional SIR – distinct from the an "intensive revision" and a "summary revision" – Justice Dhulia appeared to disagree. "They are doing what is provided in the constitution right? so you can't say that they are doing what they are not supposed to?"
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