ON JUNE 23, the Paschim Banga Khet Majoor Samity, before a bench of Justices B.V. Nagarathna and Joymalya Bagchi, argued that linking the Special Intensive Revision (‘SIR’) exercise to food security schemes risked deactivating the ration cards of between 35 lakh to 60 lakh people in the state of West Bengal. The plea challenged the state government orders that linked welfare benefits to exclusions from electoral rolls. The Supreme Court, however, declined the urgent hearing and asked the petitioner to approach the Calcutta High Court instead.
Weeks after the BJP government came to power last month following state elections under the shadow of the SIR exercise that struck off 60 lakh names from electoral rolls in West Bengal, a notification was issued for the Annapurna Yojana scheme, which replaced the former TMC government’s flagship scheme for cash transfer to women. While women would receive Rs 3,000 instead of the earlier Rs 1,500 through direct benefit transfer, the notification stated that those struck off from the rolls in the SIR, would not remain beneficiaries.
On June 4, a state government order made inclusion in the voter list a precondition for access to Public Distribution System (‘PDS’) benefits. According to the official government website, there are more than 8.89 crore PDS beneficiaries in the state of West Bengal.
Both notifications state that beneficiaries who had filed appeals before the SIR Tribunals or submitted applications under the Citizenship Amendment Act would continue to receive financial assistance until their cases were disposed of. However, the linkage of welfare schemes to SIR deletions is inherently constitutionally suspect because the Supreme Court, while deciding the constitutionality of SIR in Bihar, held that removal from the voter list is not a determination of citizenship. On May 27, the Court had directed the Election Commission of India (‘ECI’) to refer deleted persons to the competent authority under the Citizenship Act, 1955, for adjudication.
Since the deleted individuals have not had their citizenship questioned by any competent authority, much less formally determined, the move to render them ineligible for welfare schemes has raised serious constitutional concerns. It also remains unknown how many of the deleted have actually filed appeals, and how many, whether out of ignorance, inability, or the absence of any notice explaining why their names were deleted, did not (The Leaflet reached out to organisations and civil society groups who have collated, or are aware of data pertaining to SIR deletions regarding this, but could not locate any empirical data on the number of appeals filed).
The Leaflet spoke to Justice K. Chandru, former judge of the Madras High Court on the constitutionality of linking the welfare schemes with electoral rolls, and how Parliament through statutes, including the recent labour codes, has been deliberate about when it introduces citizenship as a condition for entitlements, and when it does not.
According to the official government website, there are more than 8.89 crore PDS beneficiaries in the state of West Bengal.
Can welfare schemes be linked to electoral rolls?
Last month, the former chief election commissioner O.P. Rawat had commented that many government schemes exist where citizenship is not a criteria and benefits like bank accounts, employment (under MGNREGA), cannot be denied on this ground. “Only where explicitly citizenship is essential qualification to get those benefits you can deny and then for that also you cannot ask the Election Commission’s certificate, as it is the home ministry that determines citizenship. This is something which will have to be reviewed by courts if state governments continue this,” he said.
It is not of dispute that citizenship is a condition precedent for inclusion in the electoral rolls. A non-citizen cannot vote in elections. However, the ECI has maintained that the SIR exercise was not a determination of citizenship as such, but an enquiry into eligibility for enrolment. During the Bihar SIR proceedings in January 2026, senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi had argued that the Commission's authority extends only to determining citizenship for the limited purpose of voter registration and does not reach questions of deportation or the validity of a person's right to remain in India.
The Supreme Court upheld this position and held in its judgment Association for Democratic Reforms v. Election Commission of India (2026) that a person's citizenship under the Citizenship Act will not cease merely because they are found ineligible for inclusion in the electoral rolls pursuant to an SIR exercise.
“Even today, the affected persons were not told the reason for removal of their names from the rolls,” Justice Chandru, told The Leaflet. “This is nothing but terrorizing the people and to make them to succumb to the dictates of the party in power.”
In Lal Babu Hussein v. Electoral Registration Officer (1995), the Supreme Court had said that if the opportunity of being heard before deletion of the name is to be a meaningful and purposive one, the concerned person whose name is borne on the roll and is intended to be removed must be informed why a suspicion has arisen in regard to his status as an Indian citizen so that he may be able to show that the basis for the suspicion is ill founded.
“Even today, the affected persons were not told the reason for removal of their names from the rolls,” Justice Chandru, told The Leaflet.
In West Bengal, since reasons were not communicated to those deleted, as a matter of law or of fact, it cannot be said that all those removed from the rolls, or those who did not file appeals, are non-citizens. Many may simply have had no meaningful opportunity to establish that they are.
“The executive orders, if any, have no legs to stand to deny the benefits to the people,.” Justice Chandru said.
Can the Courts intervene?
Justice Chandru explained that the removal from the rolls can be due to several factors, beyond lack of citizenship and any such denial of welfare schemes can be subject matter of challenge before the High Court or later to the Supreme Court on the ground that the development schemes were part of the state exercise in terms of Part IV of the Constitution and several, including food subsidy, transportation, and housing, referable to Article 21.
In S.Subramaniam Balaji v. Govt. of Tamil Nadu (2013), the Supreme Court had held that:
“We must recall that these measures relate to implementation of Directive Principles of State Policy. Therefore, the principle of not to treat unequals as equal has no applicability as far as State largesse is concerned. This principle applies only where the law or the State action imposes some burden on the citizen either financial or otherwise. Besides, while implementing the directive principles, it is for the Government concerned to take into account its financial resources and the need of the people.”
The National Food Security Act, 2013, which provides for PDS, is one of the most comprehensive pieces of legislation in the country providing the right to food. The Supreme Court has, in numerous cases, recognised the right to food as an essential component of the right to life with dignity under Article 21 (which is not restricted to citizens).
More recently in Anun Dhawan v. Union of India (2024), a bench of Justices Pankaj Mithal and Bela M. Trivedi had explicitly said:
“It is significant to note that though the Constitution of India does not explicitly provide for right to food, the fundamental right to life enshrined in Article 21 of the Constitution does include right to live with human dignity and right to food and other basic necessities. Article 47 of the Constitution also provides that the State shall regard the raising of level of nutrition and the standard of living of its people and the improvement of public health as among its primary duties.“
Justice Chandru opined to The Leaflet that courts are bound to grant relief in such a case at any stage of denial.
The legislative basis
Justice Chandru also illustrated two legislative examples to contextualise how citizenship has been deliberately deployed (or withheld) as a criterion for welfare and labour entitlements, and why the West Bengal government's recent circular linking PDS access to electoral roll inclusion finds no basis in the governing statutory framework.
Under the Inter-State Migrant Workmen Act, 1979 (‘ISMW Act’), benefits including housing, medical facilities, and protective clothing were extended to migrant workers without any citizenship conditions. Section 62 of the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020, (which repealed the ISMW Act), goes a step further and expressly provides for portability of PDS benefits for inter-state migrant workers, again without making citizenship a precondition:
“Benefits of public distribution system, etc.—The appropriate Government shall make schemes to provide—
(a) option to an inter-State migrant worker for availing benefits of public distribution system either in his native State or the destination State where he is employed; and
(b) for portability of the benefits of the inter-State migrant worker working for building or other
construction work out of the building and other construction cess fund in the destination State where such inter-State migrant worker is employed.”
“For benefits under the Labour Codes, citizenship is not the criteria and an employer and the government is bound to extend the benefits provided therein irrespective of the nationality of the workmen,” Justice Chandru remarked.
“For benefits under the Labour Codes, citizenship is not the criteria and an employer and the government is bound to extend the benefits provided therein irrespective of the nationality of the workmen,” Justice Chandru remarked.
This is further illustrated by the contrast with the retrenchment law. The old Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 extended retrenchment compensation to all workers regardless of nationality, but restricted the right of re-employment to citizens of India under Section 25H. When the Industrial Relations Code, 2020 replaced it, Sections 71 and 72 carried this citizenship restriction forward and the right of preference in re-employment is given only to workers who are citizens of India.
The legislature knew precisely how to introduce citizenship as a qualifying condition when it intended to do so, and chose not to in the context of welfare entitlements. Conditioning PDS access on voter list inclusion, thus, introduces a criterion that finds no basis in the governing legislations and sits in tension with the constitutional framework.
The making of a new underclass
In his dissent in Justice KS Puttaswamy (2018), Justice D.Y. Chandrachud had held that no legitimate goal of the State can be pursued at the cost of a fundamental right without passing the test of constitutionality. He stated that basic entitlements “can brook no error,” as denying food to a family leads to destitution, malnutrition, and even death.
In a recent interview with Frontline, RJD MP Manoj Kumar Jha said, “If you go back to the Constituent Assembly debates, when universal franchise was being debated, and the seriousness of those debates, the sanctity they attached to the vote — I think all of that evaporates. I fear that in Bengal, or even Bihar, or in other States, as the SIR process moves forward, we could have voteless, stateless people in this country.”
With the denial of welfare benefits to those deleted from electoral rolls, that fear has begun to take concrete institutional form.
As of today, the verification of PDS beneficiaries against the electoral rolls has plausibly concluded, given that June 15 was the deadline. For lakhs of residents of Bengal whose names were struck off, the process has in all likelihood closed the door on their ration entitlements. No competent authority has declared them non-citizens.