While the Election Commission has said that the SIR was based on the 2003 exercise, ADR cited its guidelines to say that the poll body had deliberately  concealed “crucial and relevant information while offering an untruthful account.”

The Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) has submitted in the Supreme Court that while the Election Commission of India has based the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the voter rolls in Bihar on the 2003 intensive revision, a look at the guidelines of the earlier exercise shows that the two were fundamentally different. 

The ADR, which is the lead petitioner in the case challenging the SIR in Bihar, has told the court that the 2003 exercise “cannot be used as precedent for the SIR” and said that the Election Commission, by not making the 2003 order available earlier, is “deliberately  concealing crucial and relevant information while offering an untruthful account.”

Citing the 2003 guidelines, the ADR highlighted that while the earlier exercise put the onus of inclusion of voters in the electoral rolls on the enumerator, in the 2025 SIR, the onus lies on voters who can face deletions from the rolls on failure to fill the enumeration form.

Crucially, the ADR has told the court that the 2003 exercise said it was “not the job of the enumerator to determine the citizenship of an individual.” An inquiry into citizenship was permitted only in limited cases.

“Since the Intensive Revision of 2003 did not probe into or ask for evidence for citizenship, except from a minuscule segment of population, and that too in specified areas, there is no reasonable basis to attach ‘probative evidence of eligibility, including  presumption of citizenship’ solely to the Electoral Rolls of 2003,” the ADR said to the court in written submission.

“Citizenship of every elector added subsequent to 2003 has been routinely checked by an ERO through a procedure prescribed in Chapter 7 of the Manual of Electoral Rolls. Thus, as far as citizenship is concerned, the Intensive Revision of 2003 was no different  from any other revision before or regular summary revisions after that including the Special Summary Revision completed in January 2025. The distinction drawn by ECI in SIR 2025 between pre 2003 and post 2003 electoral rolls is thus arbitrary and not sustainable,” it added.

The Wire has previously reported that the 2003 order, which is neither on the Election Commission’s website nor on web archives, is referenced in its July 21 affidavit in the Supreme Court. However, the affidavit omits key details of the 22-year-old exercise.

House-to-house verification: Onus shifts from enumerator in 2003 to voter in 2025

The ADR has attached the 2003 guidelines to say that the earlier exercise provided that the onus of inclusion in the electoral rolls was on the enumerator – now referred to as the Booth Level Officer or BLO – while in the 2025 SIR, the onus is on the voter to fill the enumeration form for inclusion in the electoral list, and failure to submit which will result in exclusion from the list.

Para 12 of the 2003 guidelines provided a detailed procedure of how enumerators were to visit every household to update voter details. Para 15 says that each enumerator will be provided with a list of house numbers, with a sketch map of the area along with the preliminary list. In case the area does not have proper house numbering, the enumerators shall be informed about the area to be covered in clear terms to ensure no overlapping. Supervisors were meant to check that all enumerators work along with random checks on 25% of the work, while enumerators were required to visit each and every household in their polling area.

In contrast, the ADR has said that the 2025 SIR included no house to house verification by the Election Commission, placed the burden of inclusion on the voters through the enumeration forms, and failure to fill such forms would result in exclusion.

No onus of determining citizenship

While the 2025 SIR has faced criticism for being an exercise to determine citizenship in the guise of purification of electoral rolls, the 2003 guidelines state that it was provided that it was not the job of the enumerator to determine citizenship.

“It is clarified that it is not the job of the enumerator to determine the citizenship of  an individual,” the 2003 guidelines say in Para 32.

“It referred to the Supreme Court’s Guidelines in the Lal Babu Hussain and directed that the ERO should attach probative value to a  person’s presence in the preceding electoral rolls,” ADR told court.

Further Para 75 of the 2003 guidelines say that no elector on the existing electoral roll can be subjected to “any verification of citizenship unless there was an objection where the onus of proof lay with the objector.”

Further, ADR has cited the 2003 guidelines that said an inquiry into a person’s citizenship and deletion on these grounds was only permitted if they had been declared as foreigners by ‘Tribunals/authorities constituted under any Act of Parliament or the State legislature’ in Para 57, or in the case of a new voter, not from any household already on electoral rolls, in a polling area or constituency identified by the state government as having ‘large-scale presence of foreign nationals’ under Para 63.  

The 2025 Bihar SIR, however, puts the onus of proving citizenship on all electors except those who are exempt due to their names being on the 2003 rolls.

While the 2025 SIR has further provided for a rigid set of 11 documents, and later Aadhaar after the Supreme Court directed the Election Commission to accept the document during the claims and objections period, the 2003 guidelines provided for four documents that could be used to prove citizenship. This included i) National Register of Citizens (NRC), would be used/referred to wherever it exists. ii) Citizenship  certificate  issued  by competent authority. iii) A  valid  passport  issued  by the Government of India. iv) Birth Certificate (care should be taken to ensure that the entry/certificate produced is genuine).

The Election Commission of India had cited the four documents sought in 2003 against the 11 as the exercise providing a wider list for ensuring inclusion.

Addition of new voters

The ADR has cited Para 12.8 of the 2003 guidelines to say that while the earlier exercise had required the enumerator to record the names of voters who had become eligible for the first time or those who had been missed, the 2025 SIR has provided no record of how many new voters have been included as Form 6 – the document used to enroll new voters – has been used to file claims and objections by those deleted in the draft roll.

Final publication of rolls and deletion of names

The 2003 guidelines provided that the final electoral list will be published only after all claims and objections have been cleared guidelines following the Supreme Court’s Lal Babu Hussain judgement are followed including time being given to be reasonably heard. It also did not allow exclusion of any name on the pre-existing rolls without going through due process for deletion of names.

In the 2025 exercise, ADR has said that Lal Babu guidelines have not been followed, a reasonable opportunity of being heard has not been given to electors “since they are not aware of notice being issued and speaking orders passed.”