Consider Aadhaar, voter ID, ration card for electoral roll revision in Bihar, SC tells EC

The Supreme Court on Thursday asked the Election Commission to consider including Aadhaar, Voter I-Card, Ration Card as documents for Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar, ahead of Assembly elections to be held in October-November.

“In our prima facie opinion, in the interest of justice, the Election Commission will also include these documents ... Aadhaar, Ration card and EPIC card,” a Bench of Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia and Justice Joymalya Bagchi said.

As senior counsel Rakesh Dwivedi insisted on behalf of the EC that Aadhaar wasn't a “proof of citizenship”, the Bench clarified that it’s for the EC to decide if it wanted to take these documents or not and if it didn’t, then it has to give reasons for the same.

Describing SIR as a "constitutional mandate", the Bench allowed the EC to go ahead with the SIR exercise in Bihar — which has close to eight crore voters. "We cannot stop a constitutional body from doing what it is supposed to do. Simultaneously, we will not let them do what they are not supposed to do,” Justice Dhulia said, terming the right to vote as an important right in a democracy.

Maintaining that 60 per cent of voters had already verified their credentials in Bihar, Dwivedi assured the Bench that none of the voters would be removed from the electoral rolls without giving them a hearing. The list of 11 documents to be considered for SIR was not exhaustive, he added.

As the top court rejected the petitioners’ argument that the EC did not have any powers to carry out SIR of electoral rolls, they chose not to press for a stay on the process.

The top court said the EC had nothing to do with citizenship of a person and it was the Ministry of Home Affairs' domain.

However, referring to Article 326 of the Constitution, Dwivedi said every voter has to be an Indian citizen and “Aadhaar card is not proof of citizenship”.

“If you are to check citizenship under SIR of electoral rolls in Bihar, then you should have acted early; it is a bit late,” the Bench noted.

Asking the Election Commission to respond to the petition within a week from today, the Bench said the petitioners should file their rejoinders, if any, before July 28 – the next date of hearing. “We are of the considered view that the matter needs hearing before an appropriate court on July 28, 2025,” it said.

Noting that the petitions raised issues relating to the EC’s powers to conduct special intensive revision of electoral rolls, the procedure to exercise these powers; and the timeline – which is very short as polls were due in November, the Bench questioned the timing of the exercise saying it has serious doubts if the exercise can be managed before the upcoming election.

"We have a serious doubt whether this timeline is realistic. It is a question of practicality. If you ask for these documents immediately... Even I will not be able to produce it now… Look at the practicality, look at the timeline," Justice Dhulia told Dwivedi.

Earlier, senior advocates Gopal Sankaranarayanan, Kapil Sibal and AM Singhvi questioned the timing of the SIR of electoral rolls on behalf of the petitioners. The entire SIR will cover around 7.9 crore citizens and even the voter ID and Aadhaar cards were not being considered, Sankaranarayanan submitted.

The EC had on June 24 ordered an SIR in Bihar — first since 2003 — to weed out ineligible individuals and ensure only eligible citizens were included in the electoral rolls. The exercise was necessitated by rapid urbanisation, frequent migration, young citizens becoming eligible to vote, non-reporting of deaths, and inclusion of the names of foreign illegal immigrants, it said.

The EC has clarified that while voters were required to "submit their documents any time before July 25", those who failed to do so would get an opportunity "during the Claims & Objections period also". It has urged people to "beware of statements being made by a few persons, who without reading the SIR order dated 24 June 2025.... are attempting to confuse the public with their incorrect and misleading statements".

More than 10 petitions, including those by the 'Association for Democratic Reforms' and the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), have been filed in the top court against SIR of electoral rolls in poll-bound Bihar.

Other petitioners against the EC’s move included RJD MP Manoj Jha and Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra, Congress' KC Venugopal, NCP (SP) leader Supriya Sule, CPI leader D Raja, Samajwadi Party's Harinder Singh Malik, Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Arvind Sawant, JMM's Sarfraz Ahmed and Dipankar Bhattacharya of CPI (ML).

Apprehending potential disenfranchisement of nearly three crore voters, the petitioners urged the top court to set aside the EC’s SIR order as being arbitrary and violative of Articles 14, 19, 21, 325 and 326 of the Constitution as well as provisions of Representation of People’s Act, 1950, and Rule 21A of the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960.