Mass Exclusion from Voter Lists Is "Intrinsically Arbitrary": Supreme Court Judge on the Right to Vote, Article 14 and Basic Structure
Supreme Court judge Justice Ujjal Bhuyan gave the closing (valedictory) address at the 19th NALSAR Justice B.R. Sawhny Memorial Moot Court Competition in Hyderabad on 4 October 2026. (A moot court is a practice court contest for law students.)
He said that any process which removes millions of citizens from the voter list, turning them into "second class citizens" who are citizens but cannot vote, is "intrinsically arbitrary". Arbitrary means done without fair reason or proper rules.
He said such mass exclusion would violate Article 14 (equality before law) and Article 326 (adult suffrage, the basis of the right to vote). He added that the Constitution does not create two classes of citizens: those with voting rights and those without.
He described the right of a citizen to vote as central to the basic structure of the Constitution, and as a right flowing from Article 326, not merely a right given by an ordinary law.
He stressed a procedural safeguard: except for a dead voter, a name once entered in the electoral roll cannot be deleted without notice and a hearing. He referred to cases such as PUCL v. Union of India, Lal Babu Hussein v. Electoral Registration Officer and Anoop Baranwal v. Union of India (2023).
The remarks were made outside the courtroom, not as a judgment. They come while the Election Commission of India's Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls is under way in several states. A Supreme Court bench had upheld the ECI's power to conduct the SIR in May 2026.
Article 326 and the Right to Vote
Article 326 of the Constitution says that elections to the Lok Sabha and the state Legislative Assemblies will be held on the basis of adult suffrage. This means every Indian citizen aged 18 or above can be registered as a voter, unless a law disqualifies them on a few fixed grounds. Even so, the Supreme Court's settled position is that the right to vote is a statutory right (given by an ordinary law of Parliament), not a fundamental right. Judges and scholars continue to debate whether it should be seen as a constitutional right instead.
Justice Bhuyan argued that the right to vote is not merely statutory but a constitutional right flowing from Article 326 and central to the basic structure. This view leans towards the reasoning in Anoop Baranwal rather than the older "pure statutory right" line of Jyoti Basu and Kuldip Nayar. That debate is a classic Mains question.
Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of Electoral Rolls
An electoral roll is the official list of voters for a constituency, and only people on it can vote. A Special Intensive Revision (SIR) is a very detailed check in which the list is rebuilt almost from scratch. Booth Level Officers go from house to house, collect forms from voters and check eligibility. The aim is to add every eligible person and remove names that should not be there, such as dead, shifted or duplicate voters.
Justice Bhuyan's remarks were made against the background of the SIR. His point that no name (except a dead voter's) can be removed without notice and hearing restates the safeguard of the Lal Babu Hussein case. His warning on mass exclusion reflects the main criticism of the SIR, while supporters argue that clean rolls are themselves needed for free and fair elections.
Article 14: Right to Equality and the Doctrine of Arbitrariness
Article 14 of the Constitution says: "The State shall not deny to any person equality before the law or the equal protection of the laws within the territory of India." In simple words, the government must treat people fairly and equally, and nobody is above the law. Over time, the Supreme Court has read one more idea into Article 14: the State must never act arbitrarily, meaning without good reason, fair rules or a proper process. This idea is called the doctrine of arbitrariness, and it has become one of the most powerful tools for checking government action in India.
Justice Bhuyan said a process that removes millions of voters would be "intrinsically arbitrary" and so violate Article 14. He used the doctrine of arbitrariness, along with the natural justice rule that no voter's name may be struck off without notice and hearing, to argue that mass exclusion cannot meet the Constitution's standard of fair State action.
Basic Structure Doctrine
The basic structure doctrine says that Parliament can amend any part of the Constitution, but it cannot destroy or damage its basic structure, the core features that give the Constitution its identity. Democracy, the rule of law, judicial review, federalism, secularism and free and fair elections are examples. The doctrine was created by the Supreme Court in the Kesavananda Bharati case of 1973. It is not written anywhere in the Constitution's text. It is a limit the Court found to be implied in the idea of "amendment" itself.
Justice Bhuyan said the citizen's right to vote is central to the basic structure. This builds on the 1975 holding that free and fair elections are a basic feature. If voting is at the heart of the basic structure, then even Parliament could not take it away by amendment, and any exercise that excludes voters on a mass scale would face strict scrutiny.
- Occasion: valedictory address at the 19th NALSAR Justice B.R. Sawhny Memorial Moot Court Competition, 4 October 2026
- Articles cited: Article 14 (equality before law), Article 325 (one general electoral roll), Article 326 (adult suffrage)
- Cases cited: PUCL v. Union of India, Lal Babu Hussein v. Electoral Registration Officer (1995), Anoop Baranwal v. Union of India (2023)
- Safeguard stressed: except for a dead voter, no name on the electoral roll can be deleted without notice and hearing (Representation of the People Act, 1950)
- SIR context: Bihar SIR ordered 24 June 2025; second phase from 27 October 2025 in 9 states and 3 UTs; ECI's power upheld by a Supreme Court bench in May 2026
- Voting age lowered from 21 to 18 by the 61st Amendment Act, 1988 (in force 28 March 1989)
- Kesavananda Bharati (1973): 13 judges, 7:6; free and fair elections declared a basic feature in Indira Gandhi v. Raj Narain (1975)