'Roving and fishing enquiry': Election Commission defends SIR in Supreme Court —what it said

NEW DELHI: Election Commission on Thursday defended its decision to carry out a Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in the Supreme Court and asked it to dismiss petitions challenging the process in Bihar.Appearing for the poll panel, senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi told the bench of chief justice Surya Kant and justice Joymalya Bagchithat that the exercise was “fair, just and reasonable”, and a “roving and fishing enquiry” into the revision could not be allowed at the instance of a few NGOs and politicians. “None of the 66 lakh persons, whose names were deleted in Bihar SIR, came to this court or high court or filed pleas with the Election Commission,” the poll panel argued. The commission said it invoked its powers under Section 21(3) of the 1950 Act, the manner of conducting a special revision was left to its discretion. “There is no compulsion under Section 21(3) that every SIR must be identical in nature,” it said, adding that the provision operates independently of routine revisions under Section 21(2).EC further said that Bihar had not seen an SIR for nearly 20 years and the exercise was needed due to changing demographics, including urbanisation and population movement. The chief justice, however, observed that if the Election Commission’s claim of unfettered discretion under Section 21(3) was accepted, “the case would end there”.EC also relied on the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2003, saying it introduced stricter requirements to establish citizenship. Justice Bagchi questioned whether the amended citizenship law was the trigger for the present SIR, pointing out that the Election Commission’s order did not refer to cross-border or illegal migration. “The word ‘migration’ ordinarily refers to lawful movement. Inter-state migration is a constitutional right,” the judge said.EC replied that the amendment had not been operationalised earlier and that the current SIR offered a chance to account for the changed legal framework.