Supreme Court upholds SIR exercise as an advancement towards free and fair elections

📌 Summary:

• Supreme Court (Bench: CJI Surya Kant + Justice Joymalya Bagchi) on May 27, 2026 upheld Election Commission of India's Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls as constitutionally valid
• Court held SIR has "direct nexus to constitutional goal of free and fair elections"; the integrity of the electoral roll is foundational to democracy
• Affirms Bihar SIR; will impact ongoing second phase covering 51 crore voters across 12 States/UTs (incl. West Bengal & Tamil Nadu)
• Rejected petitioners' claim that SIR was a "backdoor citizenship screening" — ECI can examine citizenship to the limited extent of inclusion/exclusion from rolls
• Directed ECI to refer (within 4 weeks) names of 2003-roll electors purged as non-citizens to the Centre for adjudication under the Citizenship Act before next Vidhan Sabha/local polls
• Court grounded ECI's authority in Article 324 (supervisory power) and Section 21(3) RP Act (flexible power to depart from ordinary revision)
• ECI's "cogent justifications": >2 decades since last intensive revision; large-scale additions/deletions; rapid urbanisation; migration; defective entries
• Bihar SIR data: 7.42 crore final electors vs 7.89 crore before SIR (notified June 24, 2025)
• Safeguards noted: Aadhaar accepted as 12th indicative document; mandatory publication of 65 lakh excluded names; BLO involvement

🎯 UPSC Relevance: GS2 — Polity (Constitutional Bodies / RPA & Elections); Article 324, Section 21(3) RP Act; tension between electoral roll purity and inclusion; ECI's supervisory powers; federalism (Bihar SIR → 12 States)

📝 Prelims Facts:

• Bench: CJI Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi; 124-page judgment authored by CJI
• Constitutional anchor: Article 324 (ECI's supervisory powers); Section 21(3) RP Act
• SIR Phase II: 51 crore voters across 12 States/UTs
• Bihar SIR roll change: 7.89 cr → 7.42 cr (≈47 lakh net deletions)
• Aadhaar added as 12th "indicative" document for citizenship verification

🔑 Key Term: Special Intensive Revision (SIR) — a state-wide intensive revision of electoral rolls conducted by the Election Commission under Section 21(3) of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, used when ordinary annual revision is inadequate; aims to remove deceased, duplicate, migrated, and non-citizen entries.