​Burden of proof: On SIR 2.0 and the voter

The Election Commission of India (ECI)’s SIR of electoral rolls, being held successful 12 States and Union Territories (UT), demands urgent judicial scrutiny owed to its implementation and its basal methodology. While the Supreme Court continues to hear challenges to the constitutionality of the SIR process pioneered successful Bihar, the aforesaid flawed attack is being persisted with successful different States. Voters are to fill enumeration forms delivered by Block Level Officers (BLO) and lucifer their details against electoral rolls from 2002-2005. Though data from Bihar suggest that the process did not dramatically change predetermination outcomes, it saw a crisp diminution successful the sex ratio of the electorate. Other localised distortions besides warrant concern. The ECI claims that enumeration forms person been delivered to astir electors successful the 12 States and UTs, but genuine voters proceed to scramble for forms, and disorder persists astir the documentation required for enrolment connected the draught rolls owed adjacent month. The line mandating that BLOs sojourn households appears to beryllium lone connected paper. The Gauhati High Court, successful Dr. Manmohan Singh (1999), interpreted requirements successful the Representation of the People Act, 1950 expansively: an mean nonmigratory is simply a habitual nonmigratory with the volition to dwell permanently — whom immoderate tenable idiosyncratic would judge arsenic a nonmigratory of that place. Operating from this principle, the ECI and the judiciary person historically presumed that immoderate nonmigratory big was, by default, a valid voter.

The SIR inverts this presumption. Regardless of having voted earlier, each elector indispensable now beryllium their legitimacy against aged records oregon documents listed by the ECI. This shifting of the burden, from the authorities to citizens, risks large disenfranchisement, particularly joined women and migrants, arsenic successful Bihar. As courts person recognised, a strict mentation of the “ordinarily resident” request tin vitiate the antiauthoritarian process. During hearings connected Bihar, the Court focused connected implementation, placing the onus of protecting genuine voters connected enactment representatives and ineligible volunteers. It did not analyse whether the enumeration signifier methodology passes law muster, nor did it code persisting inaccuracies successful revised rolls — apt a effect of harried BLOs leaving errors uncorrected. The ECI could person chosen a much diligent door-to-door verification to guarantee cosmopolitan big franchise, complemented by technology-driven deduplication. Instead, it doubled down connected an attack that prioritises “purifying” the rolls implicit protecting the franchise. As the SIR expands, the Court indispensable determination beyond procedural oversight to analyse the process’s law foundations. What is indispensable is simply a wide directive restoring the load of close enrolment to the ECI alternatively than leaving citizens to beryllium that they beryllium connected rolls they person been connected for years.