What about voters’ rights, milords?
SC verdict on SIR short shrifts citizens’ constitutional right to vote Alok Tiwari It would be an understatement to say that the Supreme Court judgment on Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls is disappointing. Last week the apex court, while disposing of a clutch of petitions challenging the conduct of SIR in Bihar, has upheld the power of Election Commission to conduct the exercise. It also endorsed the way EC was conducting the exercise. The scope of the petitions was limited to conduct of SIR in Bihar. Thereafter, the EC went ahead and carried it out in more states including West Bengal where it became considerably worse because of addition of ‘logical discrepancy’ criterion in vetting eligibility of the voters. Though the specific issue of this criterion was not before the court, it nevertheless took no objection to it. Instead, in Bengal case the court seemed to make light of the citizens’ right to vote by saying those who are wrongly excluded from the list will...