New Delhi: The Supreme Court is hearing multiple petitions on the special intensive revision of electoral rolls, afoot in several states and Union territories of the country. The hearings this week reflect petitioners’ concerns over citizenship, a narrow timeline and the implications of an exercise than can remove them from the electoral rolls.The hearings are taking place amidst a new report by Reporters’ Collective that claims that contrary to the Election Commission’s claim before the Supreme Court, notices in West Bengal have been generated en masse by centralised and untested algorithms for cases the Commission has euphemistically termed ‘logical discrepancies’.The report says that electoral registration officers, forced to review thousands of such cases every day, “were each left with no choice but to perfunctorily sign off on tens of thousands of notices to citizens within two weeks when flagged by the Commission’s software as suspicious.”‘Reasons as to why SIR has become necessary today’Representing petitioners against the SIR, including opposition parties from Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Bengal, Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal asked a bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi if the Election Commission had placed any data on record to demonstrate that a nationwide SIR was necessary and imminent despite annual updates to the electoral roll.The Hindu reported that Sibal submitted that the Commission, being a constitutional authority, should have been able to provide data based on a detailed study that it was indeed necessary to conduct SIR.“A process of this nature should have an application of mind giving reasons as to why this has become necessary today… Why was this necessary, not for just a part or a constituency as a whole, but for the entire nation?” Sibal asked.Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, to this, said that the poll body was only asking for documents if electors were unable to link their names to the 2002 rolls.Sibal asked how many people would have their parents’ or even their own birth certificates, stressing that the citizenship of 1.82 crore people is now questioned.“How many illegal immigrants were found in Bihar when all the exercise was completed,” Sibal also asked.When the CJI said that a lot may have changed on the electoral rolls since the 2002 intensive revision and Justice Joymalya Badchi cited deaths and outward migration, Sibal held that updates were already being made on an annual bases.“I am saying that despite the 2025 electoral roll, they need a wholesale SIR. How did the EC come to this decision? They must produce data to show that despite yearly updations till 2025, they still needed the SIR done in the midst of elections, and for what,” Sibal said.Senior Advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan, for the NGO Association for Democratic Reforms, highlighted how people have to live in “dread of being thrown out as a foreigner” and cited the ICE raids in the US. “It may happen here. It may not be this dispensation or this EC or this government we have to be worried about. We are worried about the fact that this small piece of paper holds protection for us, our civil rights and our right to be a part of this country,” Sankaranaraynan said.‘Any document can be forged’Meanwhile, The Hindu has further reported that the Supreme Court has objected to an argument that Aadhaar must be dropped from the documents electors are allowed to use for the purpose of identity verification on the ground that they are easily forged.Vijay Hansaria, for BJP’s Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay, had urged the court to reconsider its order last year, asking the Election Commission to include Aadhaar among documents for SIR verification and as proof of identity.“Do you know that a passport is also outsourced to a private agency under the auspices of the Government of India? These private service centres [through which Aadhaar enrolments and updates may be done] operate under the statutory authorities or the government it-self. Aadhaar is a public document. Any document can be forged. Even a passport can be forged, while issuing Aadhaar, the private centre is performing a public duty,” Justice Joymalya Bagchi said.‘Extend Bengal directions to Tamil Nadu’A day ago, the bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi also heard an application filed by Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam party leader R.S. Bharati, urging that directions issued by the apex court with regard to the SIR in Bengal be made applicable for Tamil Nadu as well.Senior Advocate Sibal, who appeared for Bharati, urged the court to consider particularly the direction to the Election Commission to disclose the list of persons who were issued notices citing “logical discrepancies” in their SIR forms.The CJI did not seem opposed to the idea.“Once we have laid down some uniform guidelines for Bengal there is no reason it cannot be applied in Tamil Nadu. So no order will be required,” he said, according to LiveLaw.The last date for filing of claims and objections in Tamil Nadu is January 30, tomorrow.The court has sought the Election Commission’s response.The New Indian Express has reported also that Sibal told the bench that “notices have been generated only for 18 lakh people” and that there is a gap of 88%.“These people have not received notices. The phase is ending on January 30,” Sibal said.‘Continuously fulfil citizenship’A day ago, on January 27, the Election Commission told the apex court that even registered voters are required to “continuously fulfil” the essential condition of Indian citizenship, as laid out in Article 326 of the Constitution, to retain their place in the electoral roll.“These are essential conditions. The fulfilment of these conditions is a continuous requirement. You cannot say once my name is entered, whether I lose eligibility or not, I am entitled to stay on in the electoral roll,” Senior Advocate Maninder Singh told the apex court bench headed by CJI Surya Kant, according to The Hindu.These hearings, however, were on the recently-concluded SIR in Bihar.“An exercise to verify citizenship is different from a process determining citizenship,” Senior Advocate Dama Seshadhiri Naidu, also appearing for the poll body, said.Naidu claimed there had not been even one complaint of a lapse in Bihar, despite reports indicating otherwise.