Despite Disenfranchisement Fears, SC Allows EC's Bihar Electoral Rolls Plan; Tharoor’s Kerala Dream Fades; UP Minister Invokes 'Jai Sri Ram' to Flee Angry Public

A newsletter from The Wire | Founded by Tanweer Alam, Sidharth Bhatia, Pratik Kanjilal, Seema Chishti, Sushant Singh, MK Venu, and Siddharth Varadarajan | Contributing writer: Kalrav Joshi, with additional inputs by Anirudh SK

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Over to Siddharth Varadarajan for today’s Cable

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Snapshot of the day

July 10, 2025

Siddharth Varadarajan

The Supreme Court on Thursday refused to stop the Election Commission of India (ECI) from proceeding with the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar, where assembly elections are due. A Bench of Justices Sudhanshu Dhulia and Joymalya Bagchi asked the poll body to consider Aadhaar, voter ID and ration cards for the purpose of updating the rolls, but left it to the discretion of the ECI whether to accept or reject them. This comes hours after ECI had, earlier in the day, told the apex court that Aadhaar is not a proof of citizenship as the apex court heard petitions challenging the special intensive revision of electoral rolls ahead of assembly polls in the state.

The bench questioned Senior Advocate Rakesh Dwivedi who was representing the EC on the exclusion of Aadhaar and said, crucially, that the EC had nothing to do with citizenship of a person and it was the Ministry of Home Affairs’ domain. “But citizenship is an issue to be determined not by the Election Commission of India, but by the MHA,” Justice Dhulia said. When Dwivedi said, “We have powers under Article 326,” the bench made an observation on the timing:

“Your decision let us say to disenfranchise the person who is already there on the electoral roll of 2025 would compel this individual to appeal against decision and go through this entire rigmarole and thereby be denied of his right to vote in the ensuing election. There is nothing wrong in you purging electoral rolls through an intensive exercise in order to see that non-citizens don’t remain on the role. But if you decide only a couple of months before a proposed election…”

The court had allowed the urgent listing of several petitions today. More than 10 petitions were heard at the apex court. The bench of Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia and Justice Joymalya Bagchi has asked the EC to respond by July 21 and will hear the petitions again on July 28. The court also noted that the petitions asked a question that went to the “very root of the functioning of the democracy in the country – the right to vote.” The court said that three