The Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] has moved the Supreme Court seeking to quash the Election Commission of India's (ECI) order mandating the completion of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise of electoral rolls in Tamil Nadu within a month.
The petition has been filed by Secretary of the CPI(M) Tamil Nadu State Committee P Shanmugam challenging the SIR in the state, calling the order by the ECI dated 27 October 2025 “arbitrary, illegal, and unconstitutional”.
The petition called the SIR process notified “manifestly impractical, humanly impossible, and against the Representation of the People Act, 1950 and the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960.”
According to Shanmugam, a senior leader and the first Dalit to head the CPI(M) in the state, the objective of the exercise of ensuring purity and inclusiveness in electoral rolls is not disputed.
The petition said that the ECI's order directs that enumeration be carried out between November 4 and December 4 this year covering over 6.18 crore voters in the state.
It noted that the task is “humanly impossible” as each Booth Level Officer (BLO) has been assigned nearly 500 households per day for issuing, filling, and verifying enumeration forms.
The petition pointed out that a BLO can only visit 40 to 50 households in a day, while the overall schedule as notified from October 28 to February 7 next year gives hardly 102 days for every stage of the process that includes enumeration, verification, publication of draft rolls, scrutiny, objections, and final publication.
Highlighting that such a schedule of the SIR goes against the principles of procedural fairness and reasonableness given in Articles 14 and 324 of the Constitution, the petition said that, it thus defeats the very object of an intensive revision.
It has also been pointed out to the apex court that SIR has no legislative backing commenting on the powers of the ECI. The petition said that this is a “colourable exercise of power” by the ECI.
It said that Article 324 gives the ECI powers of superintendence, it, however, cannot supersede the provisions of the Representation of the People Act, 1950 (ROPA) and the 1960 Rules.
According to the Section 28(3) of the ROPA, any procedure governing electoral rolls must be notified in the Official Gazette and tabled before Parliament, which the petition pointed out has not been followed in this case.
“No such statutory notification or parliamentary oversight exists, rendering the entire SIR exercise devoid of legal authority,” the plea has been quoted as saying by LiveLaw.
The petition said the ECI is working beyond its Constitutional limits by giving powers to officials to undertake tasks like citizenship verification and refer those “suspected foreign nationals” under the Citizenship Act, 1955, which it said is tantamount to be considered as “de facto National Register of Citizens (NRC)” exercise.
It said that this function by the ECI is beyond its mandate.
Further, it argued that the SIR can also cause “mass and unjustified disenfranchisement of genuine voters”, especially of those who belong to marginalised, migrant, and under-documented communities.
The petition has also raised objections to the Bihar SIR guidelines which has become a model for Tamil Nadu’s process under which documents such as Aadhaar and Voter ID card (EPIC) have been excluded.
It said that the guidelines mandate fresh proof of citizenship which has caused confusion and exclusion. The petition said that process is vulnerable to arbitrary exclusion despite ECI clarifying that documents need not be collected during the enumeration in the state and Aadhaar card can be shared for verification.
The ruling Davida Munnetra Khazhagham (DMK) has also moved the apex court against the SIR exercises, the matter of which will be heard tomorrow.
With inputs from LiveLaw
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