"Matter of substance, not form": Abhishek Manu Singhvi questions SIR implementation

Addressing a press conference in Delhi, Singhvi said the issue of SIR was always about "substance and intent" rather than the Election Commission of India's (ECI) power to conduct the revision.

"SIR is always and was always a matter of substance, never a matter of form. It is about substance and intent. Really speaking, the power of doing SIR was not being questioned. What was being questioned was the mode, manner, timing and style of doing it. The substance of lack of justice was the question mark," Singhvi said.

"On that count, unfortunately, the Supreme Court judgment, which has upheld the legal and constitutional validity of SIR, has raised as many questions as it has answered," he added.

Singhvi said that while the constitutional validity of SIR has been accepted by the apex court, several substantive concerns remain unresolved.

"The basic issue of SIR is in substance. Even though the constitutional validity of SIR has been accepted by the Supreme Court, the questions answered by the Court have raised more questions," he said.

Raising concerns over citizenship, Singhvi said the Supreme Court had clearly held that the final authority to determine citizenship lies with the competent authority under the Citizenship Act and not with the Election Commission.

"The final decisive body regarding citizenship is not the Election Commission. The decisive body under the Citizenship Act is the competent authority, which consists of the Ministry of Home Affairs and others...And their decision will be binding and final. So if this is true, you saw that in all 12-14 states, the 7.5 crore people who were removed primarily on the basis of citizenship, right? So how did it happen that they were removed before their citizenship was decided?" Singhvi said.

The Congress leader also alleged "significant flaws, serious flaws, errors, deficiencies and gaps" in the Election Commission's implementation of the SIR process.

Referring to Bihar, Singhvi claimed that petitions filed by political parties, NGOs and civil society led to greater transparency regarding voter deletions.

"Regarding the 65 lakh deletions that took place in Bihar, names were republished and reasons for removal were provided so that people could appeal. If there had been no intervention from civil society, NGOs and political parties, these flaws would have remained," he said.

Singhvi further criticised the timeline adopted for the revision process, alleging that the Election Commission carried out the exercise in haste.

"In Bihar, the timeline was about four months. In West Bengal, it was four to five months. So the question is raised that this haste-- Why did the Election Commission deliberately do this work everywhere in an extremely short time of three to four months? On this, too, unfortunately, the Supreme Court's comment has not come," he said.

He also questioned the process of exclusion from electoral rolls, alleging that names were deleted before final decisions were made.

"The Election Commission excludes you from the list first and the decision comes later. If exclusion is first and the decision is later, then what is its justification? It is linked to the same time limit issue," Singhvi said.

This comes after the Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld the Election Commission of India's (ECI) Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, which was first undertaken in Bihar, holding that the exercise is constitutional, legally tenable and cannot be struck down merely because it differs from the ordinary process of voter-roll revision.

A bench of Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi held that the SIR exercise cannot be declared 'ultra vires' solely on the ground that it adopts a process distinct from the routine revision of electoral rolls contemplated under the statutory framework.

The Court further clarified that the ECI's powers in the process remain limited to determining eligibility for inclusion in electoral rolls and do not extend to ascertaining citizenship status. It held that the deletion of a person's name from the voter list does not divest that individual of citizenship, since citizenship can only be determined by the competent authority under law. (ANI)