The Lift Line
“The ECI, built to widen India’s adult franchise, has instead spent more than a year narrowing it.” (Srinivasan Ramani and Pon Vasanth B.A., The Hindu)
Why This Editorial Matters for Your Exam
This Lead in The Hindu of 9 October 2026, by Srinivasan Ramani and Pon Vasanth B.A., is the most detailed case yet against the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. It does more than count deletions. It sets the SIR against the Election Commission of India’s (ECI) own Manual on Electoral Rolls (2023) and against its legal background, the Supreme Court’s judgment of 27 May 2026, which upheld the exercise.
For context, this site has already covered the scale of deletions (3 October), the legal basis of the SIR (5 October) and the Form 6 changes and the two Election Commissioners’ objections (7 October). This piece adds two things you can use in an answer: who carries the burden of proof under the ECI’s own rules, and how a court should test a mass exercise that affects a constitutional right.
GS Paper 2: Salient features of the Representation of People’s Act; appointment to various constitutional posts, powers, functions and responsibilities of constitutional bodies; structure, organisation and functioning of the Judiciary. Essay: Democracy, inclusion and the state.
New to this topic? Start here: the basics in plain words (revision card 1 of 8)
Background and Context
What the Constitution and the law say
| Provision | What it does |
|---|---|
| Article 324(1) | Vests the superintendence, direction and control of the preparation of electoral rolls in the Election Commission |
| Article 325 | One general electoral roll for every territorial constituency; no one is excluded on grounds only of religion, race, caste or sex |
| Article 326 | Every citizen of India not less than 18 years of age, and not disqualified, is entitled to be registered as a voter |
| RP Act, 1950, Section 21(3) | The ECI may direct a special revision of the roll, for reasons to be recorded |
| Registration of Electors Rules, 1960, Rule 25(1) | A roll is revised intensively, summarily, or partly each, as the ECI directs |
What the ECI’s own Manual says
The Manual on Electoral Rolls (March 2023) is the ECI’s rulebook for Electoral Registration Officers (EROs). Two of its paragraphs anchor the Lead’s argument.
| Paragraph | Rule |
|---|---|
| 9.3.1 | An intensive revision is “a denovo process without reference to the earlier existing roll”: enumerators or Booth Level Officers (BLOs) visit each house |
| 7.4.2 | If a person whose citizenship is doubted was on the immediately preceding roll, officials must attach “adequate probative value” to that fact; in a Form 7 objection on the ground that the person is not a citizen, “the onus of proof shall initially lie on the objector” |
The same Manual records that after the rolls were computerised in 1998-99, no de novo intensive revision has been held; the ECI has instead ordered special revisions “of intensive nature with house to house verification by Booth Level Officers”.
The SIR in three phases (the Lead’s figures)
| Phase | Names struck off at the draft stage | Deletion rate |
|---|---|---|
| Phase 1: Bihar | 65 lakh | 8.3% |
| Phase 2: 12 States and Union Territories | 6.57 crore | 12.9% |
| Phase 3 (final rolls not yet published) | 6.15 crore | 17% |
| Total, 30 States and UTs | 13.37 crore |
The Lead puts net deletions in Phases 1 and 2, after names were added back, at about 6.2 crore. Delhi’s draft roll (97.54 lakh) is barely above the 94.95 lakh who voted in the February 2025 Assembly election.
The Analysis
The Lead identifies five design flaws, then three objections to the judgment.
1. Enumeration is inverted. Under the Manual, the state goes to the voter: officials visit every house. The SIR, the authors argue, “shifts enumeration on to electors and presumes that they are ineligible” until they can trace themselves or a parent to the last intensive revision, held more than two decades ago, or produce documents, in “what resembles a citizenship test”. People who were not found, did not get or return the form, or could not fill it in were dropped, even if they had voted at the last election.
2. Re-entry hides the damage. A deleted voter, even one who only moved within the constituency, must apply on Form 6, the form for new voters. Because first-time 18-year-olds use the same form, the published figures cannot separate returning voters from new ones, which, the authors say, prevents a proper audit.
3. “Logical discrepancies” became grounds for deletion. Software matched electors against rolls two decades old and flagged spelling differences, more than six voters linked to one ancestor, and parent-child age gaps outside 15 to 45 years. In West Bengal, 60 lakh names were flagged and judicial officers deployed by the Supreme Court struck off 27 lakh. Appellate tribunals restored electors in 93% of cases, but by early September had disposed of only 1.22 lakh of more than 38 lakh appeals (3.2%). Another 19.33 lakh electors on Delhi’s draft roll have been flagged.
4. Power is centralised. Changes increasingly flow through the Electoral Roll Officers’ Network (ERONet) database, overriding EROs, who are the statutory authorities on eligibility. State officials, the Lead reports, cannot see centrally made changes in their own constituencies.
5. There is no baseline. With the Census delayed, there is no firm population figure to check the rolls against, and the ECI dismisses projections. Tamil Nadu’s final roll of 5.67 crore is about 33 lakh short of the projected 6.02 crore.
The impact was uneven. In Bihar, where work migration is mostly male, more women than men were struck off, and the gender ratio of the roll fell to 892 from 907 in the 2024 Lok Sabha rolls. In West Bengal, the Kolkata-based SABAR Institute estimated that 65% of those deleted after adjudication for logical discrepancies were Muslims, against a population share of about 27%.
The judgment in context. The Court ruled on 27 May 2026, after Phase 2 had ended and Phase 3 had been notified, and upheld the SIR. The authors report three objections from legal scholars:
- A targeted power used State-wide. Section 21(3) allows a special revision “for any constituency or part of a constituency”, which the authors read as an exceptional, targeted power. The Court let the ECI use it for whole States, free of the Rules that govern ordinary revisions.
- The wrong test. The Court asked whether the SIR was “manifestly excessive”, not whether a less harmful method, such as door-to-door verification, could achieve the same aim.
- Precedent sidestepped. In Lal Babu Hussein (1995), a three-judge bench struck down a “sweeping” revision that demanded citizenship documents from nearly 18,000 residents of Delhi’s Matia Mahal. That ruling, built into the ECI’s Manual, holds that a name on the roll is presumed valid and can be removed only after notice and a hearing.
The Court, the authors write, found disenfranchisement not “widespread or systemic” enough to intervene, without saying what would be. They add that the two Election Commissioners’ recorded objections (covered here on 7 October) were a majority that was never used to stop the decisions.
Data and Institutions Vault
Prelims-grade facts:
- Article 324(1): superintendence, direction and control of the preparation of electoral rolls vests in the Election Commission.
- Article 325: one general roll per territorial constituency; no exclusion on grounds only of religion, race, caste or sex.
- Article 326: adult suffrage; a citizen not less than 18 years of age, not disqualified, is entitled to be registered.
- RP Act, 1950, Section 21(3): the ECI may direct a special revision, for reasons to be recorded.
- Rule 25(1), Registration of Electors Rules, 1960: revision may be intensive, summary, or partly each.
- Manual on Electoral Rolls, March 2023: para 9.3.1 (intensive revision is de novo); para 7.4.2 (probative value of an existing entry; in a Form 7 objection on citizenship, onus initially on the objector).
- Form 6: application for inclusion (new voters). Form 7: objection to an entry, seeking deletion.
- Lal Babu Hussein v. Electoral Registration Officer (1995): three-judge bench; Matia Mahal, Delhi; no deletion on suspicion of citizenship without notice and a hearing.
- SIR judgment (background): delivered 27 May 2026 by a bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi; upheld the SIR.
- ERONet: Electoral Roll Officers’ Network, the ECI’s central roll database.
⚠️ Watch the trap: The ERO, not the ECI’s central database, is the statutory authority who decides an elector’s eligibility. And under the Manual, in a Form 7 objection on citizenship the onus is initially on the objector, not on the elector whose name is already on the roll.
The Debate
The authors’ case. The ECI’s own rules put the burden on the state: go house to house, presume a listed elector is valid, and make the objector prove otherwise. The SIR reversed each step, at speed and on the eve of elections, and the published data make the damage hard to audit. The Court, by asking only whether the exercise was “manifestly excessive”, let a targeted statutory power become a national one.
The other side. The Supreme Court held that the ECI has the power to conduct the SIR under Article 324 and the RP Act, 1950, and that when the statute authorises a special revision “at any time, for reasons to be recorded”, the exercise cannot be struck down merely because it does not follow routine revision. It found a direct nexus between accurate rolls and free and fair elections, citing migration, urbanisation and the risk of duplicate entries. It also rejected the argument that the procedure negated the presumption of citizenship of people already on the rolls. Clean rolls protect voters too: a roll padded with dead or duplicate entries invites impersonation.
The balanced verdict. Accuracy and inclusion are both constitutional values, so the question is method, not motive. A revision that keeps the burden of proof on the state, separates returning from new voters in its data, and routes every deletion through an ERO with notice and a hearing could clean the rolls without shrinking the franchise. Whether the Court revisits its judgment in the pending West Bengal and Delhi petitions is the next test.
How to Think About This
Use a burden-of-proof lens. In any mass verification, by the state, a bank or a welfare scheme, ask three questions. Who must act first: the official or the citizen? Who must prove what: does an existing record count as evidence? And what happens to those who cannot respond: are they kept or dropped? The Lead’s argument is that the SIR answered all three against the citizen. Pair that with the least restrictive means idea from proportionality: if door-to-door verification could achieve the same aim with fewer wrongful deletions, the harsher method needs a strong justification.
Diagram-in-Words
Flawed by design: the Lead’s argument on the SIR
From what the ECI’s own Manual requires, through how the SIR inverted it, to the judgment and the authors' remedies.
Takeaway Box
- Core idea: The SIR, the authors argue, inverts the ECI’s own Manual by shifting enumeration and proof on to electors.
- Know the anchors: Articles 324, 325, 326; RP Act Section 21(3); Rule 25(1); Manual paras 9.3.1 and 7.4.2; Lal Babu Hussein (1995).
- Know the judgment: 27 May 2026, SIR upheld; scholars object on Section 21(3), the test applied and precedent.
- Mains use: GS2 constitutional bodies, judicial review, universal adult franchise; Essay on inclusion.
Revision Cards
UjiyariThe five design flaws: card 3 →UjiyariThe judgment and the other side: card 4 →UjiyariThe static base: card 5 →UjiyariTest yourself on card 6 →Show answer
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UjiyariWatch the trap: card 7 →R1Which Manual para calls an intensive revision de novo?
R2Which rule lets the ECI order intensive or summary revision?
R3Which case concerned Matia Mahal, Delhi?
UjiyariWrite the Mains answer on card 8 →UjiyariNow take today’s quiz →Sources: The Hindu, Lead by Srinivasan Ramani and Pon Vasanth B.A., 9 October 2026; Election Commission of India, Manual on Electoral Rolls, March 2023 (via CEO Tripura); News On AIR, background report: Supreme Court upholds legality of ECI’s Special Intensive Revision, 27 May 2026
Source: Flawed by Design: SIR, the Supreme Court and Lost Voters — Ujiyari.com | Free UPSC & State PCS Editorial Analysis
