Nine months after the Election Commission of India (ECI) announced the contentious Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls ahead of Bihar’s November 2025 assembly elections, and six months after the polls ended, the Supreme Court on Wednesday (May 27) upheld the commission’s power to conduct the exercise. The three-month-long revision required all existing voters not on the 2003 rolls to provide documentation proof of their citizenship and that of their parents. While the Election Commission faced criticism for introducing the National Register of Citizens (NRC) through the backdoor, the Supreme Court ruled the poll body cannot be the final determinant of citizenship. It said the ECI being “confined to electoral purposes, cannot assume finality on the question of citizenship.” The court further directed the commission to forward, within four weeks, the names of persons deleted from electoral rolls on grounds of doubtful citizenship to the Union government. Despite the court’s ruling that citizenship determinations lie ultimately with the Union government rather than the ECI, the judgement has raised concerns about how the disenfranchisement of over five crore voters now carries the Supreme Court’s stamp of approval, how the order will be used to implement the centre’s “detect, delete, deport” policy, and why the court left more questions unanswered than it resolved. “To me it sounds like the Additional District Magistrate (ADM) Jabalpur case which happened during the Emergency, which legalised taking away people’s right to life. Now the Supreme Court has legalised taking away the right to vote,” said Yogendra Yadav, national convenor of Bharat Jodo Abhiyan and a petitioner in the case, in a video discussion on The Wire.By the time the Supreme Court delivered its verdict on Wednesday (May 27), assembly polls in Bihar had already concluded, a new government was in place and the state’s electorate had shrunk by about 6%, with 47 lakh fewer voters than before the revision. The ECI has since conducted the SIR in 12 states and union territories, deleting over five crore people from the rolls, with all voters required to map themselves to the 2002 electoral rolls. In West Bengal, where a new government also came to power after elections held during this period, about 27 lakh people were unable to vote in April as their appeals were pending before judicial tribunals. The exercise will now get underway in the remaining states and union territories.“The final figure once SIR is completed throughout the country would be about 10 crore. The Supreme Court has now put a stamp of legality on these 10 crore exclusions. In a sense, the Supreme Court has allowed the logic of democracy to be inverted. The logic of democracy is that voters elect the government. Today the result of what the Supreme Court has done will be that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will determine who votes in this country and who does not,” said Yadav.Also read: Why the Bihar Electoral Roll Revision Has Sparked Concerns About Disenfranchisement, Backdoor Entry for NRCCan the ECI decide citizenship?A crucial question before the court was whether the Election Commission is empowered to determine citizenship. In its judgement, the court invoked Bihar’s ancient history in the fifth and sixth century BCE and noted that democracy is “not only a story of voting, but also of identifying the persons entitled to participate in the choice of government.” The judgement held that the poll body, under Section 16 of the Representation of the People Act, “in the course of preparing or revising electoral rolls, is undoubtedly empowered to examine questions bearing upon citizenship.” It added, however, that such an enquiry “can only be made from the standpoint of determining inclusion or exclusion from the electoral roll and must be undertaken with due regard to the presumption operating in favour of an elector whose name is already borne on the roll.”The court further said the consequences of the commission determining citizenship are limited: “It affects the individual’s entitlement to be included in the electoral roll and thereby their right to participate in the electoral process. It does not, however, operate to divest the individual of claims of citizenship, nor does it foreclose a determination of that question by the Competent Authority under the Citizenship Act.”While directing the commission to refer persons who do not meet statutory conditions to the central government, the court asserted its own determination cannot assume finality. “Any deletion effected on this ground shall, therefore, remain subject to the outcome of such adjudication by the appropriate authority,” it said.‘Does not take into account harsh realities’Legal experts said that while the judgement adheres to the law, it fails to take into account the conditions on ground. “The judgment is very legalistic,” said Faizan Mustafa, the Vice Chancellor of the Chanakya National University, while speaking to The Wire. “True, it has correctly interpreted the law by applying classical positivistic rules of interpretation, where you go by the black letter of law, but it has not taken into account the harsh ground realities, which I am sure the petitioners must have presented to it,” he said.Even before the court’s order came, the Bihar government had moved to reorder welfare beneficiaries on basis of SIR deletions. The BJP’s first chief minister in the state, Samrat Choudhary, declared that those excluded in the SIR would not be entitled to any government benefits. In April, during election campaigns in West Bengal, he said that 22 lakh ration cards had already been cancelled following the exercise.The court has now said that where persons have been deleted on account of the commission not considering them citizens, it “shall refer such cases within 4 weeks to the competent authority under the Citizenship Act, 1955, for adjudication of their citizenship.”“What this judgement does is say that the ECI does not have the authority to make a final determination, but it can make a prima facie one. That prima facie determination itself puts the citizenship of many people in enough doubt that they will not be included in the electoral rolls,” said Sanjay Hegde, a senior advocate in the Supreme Court. “Once excluded, the politician is no longer interested or answerable. The executive can deny rations and benefits and as and when, might as well throw you across the international border. That is the danger of this order.”In West Bengal, the BJP’s first chief minister, Suvendu Adhikari, has not only reordered welfare beneficiaries to exclude those deleted in the SIR, while saying those with pending appeals or CAA applications remain eligible, but also announced that alleged infiltrators will be handed over to the BSF instead of being produced in court.Also read: ‘Worst Fears Coming True’: Why BJP Chief Ministers’ Plans to Link SIR to Welfare Raises Serious ConcernsHegde said the court had not addressed the question of what was to happen to those whose citizenship is now in doubt. “If you doubt somebody’s citizenship, you have to give specific reasons and you also have to say that not only are they not a citizen of India, but which country you believe they belong to. You cannot render people without citizenship and stateless,” he said.Mustafa raised a related procedural concern. If a voter’s name was on the 2003 roll and is now being deleted, the commission must presume them a citizen, give notice, allow a hearing and pass a speaking order. “How many cases were given such an opportunity and in how many cases a speaking order was passed, the court does not really mention this. In this sense, the real impact of the SIR on the ground does not receive any critical examination in the judgement,” he said.The Supreme Court’s order also made no mention of the actions state governments are taking on the basis of SIR deletions. “The court could have taken cognisance of the fact that due to the deletions people’s names are being removed from ration cards, they are being deprived of welfare benefits and in Bengal there is an open threat of deportation to Bangladesh,” said Yadav. “The court could have said in its order that such actions are disallowed until the government declares someone as a foreigner. So, I don’t see this as a redeeming feature.”‘Raises more questions than answers’While the method, design and timing of the SIR was criticised, the judgement acknowledged that the process “initially designed, did raise legitimate concerns regarding documentation, transparency, and access” but held that these were addressed through judicial interventions. This included the addition of Aadhaar card as the 12th acceptable document, the publication of names and reasons of deletion of 65 lakh voters in the draft list and the deployment of booth-level agents. These steps, the court said “operated as structural correctives that ensured the process remained aligned with the requirements of procedural fairness.”“The court claims credit for structural interventions but does not take any responsibility for whether those interventions were effective or whether the actions that caused them were so egregious in nature, that they needed to be commented on,” said Hegde.The judgement also offered no assessment of the SIR’s timing, conducted just months before elections. The Wire has reported the ECI changed course multiple times during the Bihar SIR, on the inclusion of Aadhaar, the rules governing enumeration forms, the exercise’s stated rationale and the claims and objections deadline. “The Supreme Court has indeed acknowledged the constitutional validity of SIR, but in giving as many answers as the apex court has, it has raised just as many questions,” said Congress member of parliament (MP) Abhishek Manu Singhvi, who appeared on behalf of the petitioners, at a press conference on Wednesday (May 27). “The SIR is always a matter of substance, never merely a matter of form. The issue was never about the power to conduct it. What was being questioned was the mode, manner, timing and style in which it was carried out,” he said.