Bihar SIR Row: Supreme Court Backs EC, Says Aadhaar Not Proof of Citizenship, Must Be Verified

Supreme Court backed the EC's stand that Aadhaar is not proof of citizenship and must be verified, while questioning claims of 1 crore missing voters in Bihar's voter roll revision ahead of the assembly elections in the state.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday backed the Election Commission of India's (ECI) position that Aadhaar cannot be considered conclusive proof of citizenship. A bench led by Justice Surya Kant, hearing petitions linked to Bihar’s Special Summary Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, said Aadhaar details must be independently verified before being used in the voter ID linking process. Justice Kant told senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for the petitioners, that the EC's stand on Aadhaar verification was correct.

Supreme Court told the petitioners against Bihar SIR that if out of state's 7.9 crore registered voters, 7.24 crore have already responded in the ongoing voter roll revision, it weakens their claim that around 1 crore voters are missing from the list. Essentially, the court meant that such a high response rate makes the 'missing voters' allegation less convincing.

Bihar voter list revision: Court questions missing voter claim 

Justice Kant told senior advocate Kapil Sibal, representing the petitioners, that the poll panel's stand on Aadhaar verification was correct. The bench also told the petitioners that their claim of 1 crore missing voters appeared weak. It said that if out of 7.9 crore registered voters in Bihar, 7.24 crore have already responded in the voter list update, the allegation of large-scale deletion becomes less convincing.

Petitions allege errors in voter rolls

Several petitions have challenged the ECI's decision to conduct a special intensive revision in poll-bound Bihar. Sibal claimed the draft rolls contained major errors, in some cases, living voters were marked as dead, while in others, dead people were shown as alive. Senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi, for the ECI, said such mistakes can happen in a large exercise but can be corrected before the final list is released. The Supreme Court said the first issue to decide was whether the ECI has the authority to carry out such a verification drive. "If they don’t have the power, everything ends. But if they have the power, there can't be a problem," Justice Kant said.

Petitioners fear mass exclusion

Sibal warned that the process could lead to many voters being removed, especially those unable to fill out new forms. He said even voters from the 2003 list were being asked to submit fresh forms, and failing to do so could result in their names being deleted. He claimed that although 7.24 crore people had submitted forms, 65 lakh names were still removed without proper checks on deaths or migration. The court asked him to explain how he calculated this figure and whether it was based on facts or assumptions.

Advocate Prashant Bhushan also told the court that the EC had not made public the list of voters removed from the rolls due to death or change of address. He said this information was only given to booth-level agents, while the EC argued it was not required to share it more widely. The bench said that if a voter provided Aadhaar and ration card details, the EC must verify them and ensure people were informed about any missing documents.

The arguments will continue in Supreme Court tomorrow, August 13.