The CPI(M) has filed a petition in the Supreme Court challenging the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Tamil Nadu, calling the month-long voter list update “humanly impossible” and legally unsustainable.
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NEW DELHI: The Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] has approached the Supreme Court of India seeking to quash the Election Commission of India’s (ECI) order mandating the completion of a Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Tamil Nadu within a month.
The petition, filed by P. Shanmugam, Secretary of the CPI(M) Tamil Nadu State Committee and the first Dalit to head the party in the state, alleges that the ECI’s order dated October 27, 2025, is “arbitrary, illegal, and unconstitutional.”
What Petition Says
According to the petition, the ECI has directed that enumeration be carried out between November 4 and December 4, 2025, covering over 6.18 crore voters in Tamil Nadu. Each Booth Level Officer (BLO) has been assigned nearly 500 households per day for issuing, filling, and verifying enumeration forms, a task termed “humanly impossible.”
The petition argues that a BLO can only visit 40–50 households in a day, and the overall SIR schedule, from October 28, 2025, to February 7, 2026, allows only 102 days to complete all stages, including enumeration, verification, draft roll publication, scrutiny, objections, and final publication.
CPI(M) contends that such a compressed timeline undermines the core purpose of an “intensive revision” and violates Articles 14 and 324 of the Constitution, which guarantee fairness and reasonableness in administrative processes.
The CPI(M) petition also asserts that the SIR exercise lacks statutory authority and represents a “colourable exercise of power” by the ECI.
While Article 324 empowers the ECI with superintendence over elections, the party argues that this cannot override the framework laid out in the Representation of the People Act, 1950 (ROPA) and the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960.
Under Section 28(3) of the ROPA, any procedure concerning electoral rolls must be notified in the Official Gazette and placed before Parliament. The petition points out that this mandatory process has not been followed.
“No such statutory notification or parliamentary oversight exists, rendering the entire SIR exercise devoid of legal authority,”
the plea states.
CPI(M) warns that the SIR could lead to mass disenfranchisement of genuine voters, particularly those from marginalised, migrant, and under-documented communities.
The petition criticises the SIR model adopted from Bihar, which had previously excluded commonly used identification documents such as Aadhaar and EPIC cards, demanding fresh proofs of citizenship.
Although the ECI later clarified that Aadhaar cards would be accepted and no new citizenship documents would be required, the CPI(M) maintains that the process remains “deeply flawed and prone to arbitrary exclusion.”
The CPI(M) further accuses the ECI of overstepping its constitutional limits by allegedly allowing officials to identify and report “suspected foreign nationals” under the Citizenship Act, 1955, effectively turning the SIR into a de facto National Register of Citizens (NRC) exercise.
The petition also argues that the unilateral imposition of the SIR on Tamil Nadu violates the spirit of cooperative federalism, reducing the state government to a “mere implementing agency” for a centrally dictated process.
DMK Also Challenges the SIR in the Supreme Court
The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), the ruling party in Tamil Nadu, has also moved the Supreme Court against the SIR, raising similar concerns about legality and feasibility. The apex court is scheduled to hear the DMK’s plea on November 11, 2025.
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