THE SUPREME COURT on Tuesday was told that the Special Intensive Revision (‘SIR’) of the electoral rolls by the Election Commission of India, starting with Bihar and now extended to 12 States and the Union Territories, cannot include determination of the citizenship which effectively amounts to an indirect National Register of Citizens (‘NRC’) without the nod of the parliament.
Resuming his unconcluded argument from Friday, Senior Advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, appearing for one of the petitioners, told the Bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi that the ECI was exceeding its constitutional mandate by turning the electoral roll revision into a citizenship determination process.
Singhvi argued that the “determination of citizenship lies exclusively with the Central government under Sections 8 and 9 of the Citizenship Act or with the courts and Foreigners Tribunals,” and not with ECI acting through Booth Level Officers (‘BLOs’).
He argued that by asking Electoral Registration Officers to scrutinise citizenship documents, mark suspected non-citizens and report them to the Home Department, “the Election Commission has acted ultra vires the Constitution and the Citizenship Act… This breaches statutory limits and raises concerns of indirect NRC without parliamentary sanction.”
