Delhi Draft Rolls Show Skewed Exclusion Under SIR Process

India's electoral rolls are based on Article 324. This article gives the Election Commission of India (ECI) the power to run, direct and control elections. This includes preparing electoral rolls. Article 326 guarantees universal adult suffrage. Every citizen aged 18 or above has the right to vote. The only exception is if the law disqualifies them. The Representation of the People Act, 1950 explains how rolls are prepared and revised. Section 21 of this Act lets the ECI order a special revision when needed. Rolls are normally updated continuously. Booth Level Officers carry out annual revisions. The rolls are not rebuilt from scratch.

Courts have provided an important safeguard. In Lal Babu Hussein (1995), the courts held that a name already on an earlier roll has probative value as evidence of citizenship. This name cannot simply be removed without proper inquiry. This matters because an elector's right to vote is recognised once on a roll. This recognition carries a presumption that should not be easily disturbed. The ECI's own Manual on Electoral Rolls (2023) and its earlier 2002-03 Special Intensive Revision (SIR) did not use criteria like family size, name spelling or parental age gap. They did not use these criteria to flag electors. This is why their reappearance now raises concern.

The ECI has faced credibility questions over other parts of the election machinery. For example, doubts were raised in the past about Electronic Voting Machines. This same credibility question resurfaces here in a new form. Opaque technical processes fuelled distrust of EVMs. An opaque flagging process in the SIR risks eroding confidence that the roll itself is fair and rule-based.