CPI(M) Moves Supreme Court Against Election Commission’s ‘Unconstitutional’ Voter Roll Revision in Tamil Nadu

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) has approached the Supreme Court challenging the constitutional validity of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls ordered in Tamil Nadu, alleging that the Election Commission of India’s decision is “arbitrary, illegal and unconstitutional.”

The petition has been filed by P. Shanmugam, State Secretary of CPI(M) in Tamil Nadu and the first Dalit to lead the party in the State. The plea seeks to quash the Election Commission’s notification dated October 27, 2025, which directs that the SIR process be completed within a month.

Shanmugam has submitted that while the stated goal of ensuring accuracy in electoral rolls is not disputed, the scale and timeline mandated by the Commission are “manifestly impractical, humanly impossible, and violative of statutory procedure” under the Representation of the People Act, 1950 and the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960.

According to the petition, the SIR notification requires enumeration of over 6.18 crore voters in Tamil Nadu between November 4 and December 4, 2025.

The plea states that each Booth Level Officer (BLO) has effectively been tasked with visiting nearly 500 households per day to issue, collect, and verify forms, which the petitioner calls “humanly impossible,” noting that a BLO can realistically visit only 40 to 50 households in a working day.

The petition further highlights that the entire SIR cycle, from field verification to draft roll publication, objection handling, and final roll release scheduled between October 28, 2025 and February 7, 2026 amounts to 102 days, which it argues defeats the very purpose of “intensive revision” and violates principles of reasonableness and procedural fairness under Articles 14 and 324 of the Constitution.

CPI(M) has contended that the SIR has no statutory basis, calling it a “colourable exercise of power.” It argues that while Article 324 grants the Election Commission supervisory authority, it cannot override the electoral roll framework set by Parliament.

The plea also says that under Section 28(3) of the 1950 Act, any new electoral roll procedure must be notified in the Gazette and placed before Parliament, which the petitioner claims has not been done.

“No such statutory notification or parliamentary scrutiny exists. The SIR exercise is therefore without legal authority,” the petition asserts.

The CPI(M) has warned that the exercise risks mass disenfranchisement, especially among marginalised, migrant, and under-documented communities.

It also criticises the Bihar SIR model, on which Tamil Nadu’s revision is based, for rejecting common documents like Aadhaar and voter ID and effectively requiring fresh citizenship verification.

Although the Election Commission later clarified that Aadhaar may be used and that documents need not be collected during Tamil Nadu enumeration, the petitioner maintains that the process remains vulnerable to arbitrary exclusions.

The plea further alleges that the SIR allows officials to refer “suspected foreign nationals” under the Citizenship Act, effectively turning the exercise into a “de facto National Register of Citizens (NRC)”, something beyond the ECI’s powers.

The petition also accuses the Centre of violating cooperative federalism, arguing that the Tamil Nadu government has been reduced to a mere implementing agency in a centrally imposed exercise.

Notably, the DMK government has also challenged the SIR before the Supreme Court. The DMK’s petition is scheduled to be heard tomorrow.