EC can delete doubtful voters, cannot decide citizenship: SC
The Supreme Court, hearing petitions on West Bengal's Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, held that deletion of a person's name from the electoral roll does not automatically result in loss of Indian citizenship.
The Court clarified that the Election Commission of India (ECI) is empowered under law to decide who should remain on the voters' list, but has no authority to make a final determination on a person's citizenship.
The bench held that where the ECI removes a person from the rolls over doubts about citizenship, it has a corresponding duty to refer the matter to the Central Government for determination under the Citizenship Act, 1955.
The Court sought a response from the West Bengal government on reports that welfare benefits — including the Public Distribution System (PDS), the Annapurna Yojana, and caste certificates — were being denied to persons deleted from the rolls, even while their appeals remained pending.
Around 34 lakh appeals against deletion were reported pending before Appellate Tribunals at the time of the hearing.
Article 324 — Constitutional Basis of the Election Commission
Article 324 vests the "superintendence, direction and control" of elections to Parliament, state legislatures, and the offices of President and Vice-President in the Election Commission of India, an independent constitutional body. It does not, however, extend to determining citizenship — a subject exclusively governed by the Citizenship Act, 1955, administered by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs.
Key Details
- ECI is composed of the Chief Election Commissioner and other Election Commissioners (currently a three-member body) appointed by the President.
- Article 326 provides for elections to the Lok Sabha and state assemblies on the basis of adult suffrage — every citizen aged 18 or above and not otherwise disqualified is entitled to be registered as a voter, tying voter eligibility directly to citizenship status.
- The ECI's revision powers over electoral rolls flow from statute (Representation of the People Act, 1950), not directly from Article 324 itself, though Article 324 is read as the source of its plenary administrative authority over elections.
The Court's ruling draws a sharp line between the ECI's statutory power to maintain accurate electoral rolls (Article 324 + RP Act) and the constitutionally distinct, Executive-held power to adjudicate citizenship — a distinction directly tested by the SIR deletions in West Bengal.
Section 21 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950 — Special Revision of Electoral Rolls
Section 21 of the RP Act, 1950 governs preparation and revision of electoral rolls. Sub-section (3) empowers the ECI to direct a "special revision" of the electoral roll for any constituency, for reasons to be recorded — the statutory basis for exercises such as the Special Intensive Revision (SIR).
Key Details
- SIR involves house-to-house enumeration, pre-filled forms, and verification against earlier roll data to remove deceased, permanently shifted, duplicate, and non-citizen entries.
- Persons whose citizenship is in doubt during such revisions are not struck off outright in Assam-type proceedings; instead they are marked "D" (Doubtful) voters pending determination by a Foreigners Tribunal under the Foreigners Act framework — a mechanism distinct from West Bengal's SIR, since Assam's roll revision is conducted separately citing Section 6A of the Citizenship Act, 1955 and the ongoing National Register of Citizens (NRC) process.
- The Supreme Court, in a related May 2026 ruling, upheld the legal validity of the SIR exercise as consonant with the RP Act and the ECI's constitutional mandate to conduct free and fair elections, while flagging concerns that the process gave more weight to purging bogus entries than to safeguarding eligible citizens' inclusion.
The present order builds on that validation of SIR's legality by addressing its downstream consequence — states or authorities cannot treat electoral roll deletion as proof of non-citizenship for denying statutory welfare entitlements.
Citizenship Determination Under the Citizenship Act, 1955
Citizenship is a Union subject (List I, Seventh Schedule) and its determination is governed exclusively by the Citizenship Act, 1955, not by any electoral law. Only the Central Government (or authorities it designates, such as Foreigners Tribunals in the Assam framework) can adjudicate whether a person is or is not a citizen of India.
Key Details
- The Citizenship Act, 1955 provides for citizenship by birth, descent, registration, naturalisation, and by incorporation of territory (Sections 3–7).
- Section 6A, inserted after the Assam Accord (1985), lays down special citizenship provisions for persons of Assam.
- Loss of citizenship can occur only through renunciation, termination, or deprivation under Sections 8–10 of the Act — an electoral roll deletion is not among the recognised modes of losing citizenship.
By directing the ECI to refer doubtful cases to the Centre, the Court reaffirmed that electoral bodies cannot short-circuit the Citizenship Act's dedicated adjudicatory process through roll-revision exercises alone.
- Article 324: constitutional basis of ECI's superintendence over elections.
- Article 326: adult suffrage at age 18, contingent on citizenship.
- Section 21(3), Representation of the People Act, 1950: statutory basis for special revision of electoral rolls (including SIR).
- Citizenship Act, 1955: sole statute governing citizenship determination; Section 6A is Assam-specific.
- Approximately 34 lakh appeals against SIR-related deletions reported pending before Appellate Tribunals in West Bengal.
- Supreme Court's related SIR validation ruling: May 27, 2026.