Chennai, Nov 3 (PTI) Tamil Nadu’s ruling DMK on Monday filed a petition in the Supreme Court challenging Election Commission’s plan to implement the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls in the state from November 4.
Chief Minister MK Stalin-led DMK has gone to the court a day ahead of the EC’s proposed initiation of SIR of electoral rolls in 12 states, including Tamil Nadu and 3 union territories.
DMK’s Organisation Secretary, senior leader R S Bharathi filed the petition in the court through party MP, senior advocate NR Elango, a DMK release said, adding the matter is expected to be heard by the Supreme Court on November 6 or 7.
The writ petition, a copy of which was made available to the media, challenges the constitutional validity of the SIR exercise and the petitioner, the DMK, in its plea has prayed the court to set aside the Election Commission’s notification in this regard dated October 27, 2025.
The ruling party has argued that the notification be quashed on grounds of violation of Articles including 14, 19, 21 (related to fundamental rights including equality), 325 and 326 (related to electoral roll and adult suffrage) of the Constitution as well as the provisions of the Representation of the People Act, 1950 and the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960.
The petition said a perusal of the guidelines prescribed in orders dated 24.06.2025 and 27.10.2025, reveals that they are replete with arbitrariness, unreasonableness and illegalities. “The SIR is bound to cause confusion and disenfranchisement of a large number of voters, as seen in the State of Bihar.” The SIR lacks any statutory basis and therefore goes beyond the scope of the 1960 rules. It is because a wholesale verification afresh in an unreasonably truncated timeframe was not contemplated in the rules. The EC has issued an impractical timeline to conduct SIR in Tamil Nadu where state elections are due in early 2026.
“There are lakhs of citizens whose names did not appear in 2002/2005 electoral rolls who do not possess the documents as required under the SIR order, there are many who may be able to procure the documents but the short timeline mentioned in directive may preclude them from being able to supply the same within the time period.” In the context of Tamil Nadu, there is a huge issue of voting rights for internal migrants and Representation of the People Act provides the meaning of the term ‘ordinarily resident’ which is archaic and confusing and liable to gross misinterpretation and abuse. It does not address the three distinct categories (long-term/semi-permanent, short-term/seasonal and another category involving short time migration) of present-day immigrants and there is no justification in enrolling migrants falling under categories like ‘short-term.’ The primary responsibility for implementing any revision of electoral rolls rests with the state government, which is required to provide personnel, logistics and infrastructure whenever directed by the Election Commission. An exercise of the unprecedented scale and intensity of the SIR imposes an unplanned and extraordinary financial and administrative burden on the state machinery, compelling it to divert significant human and fiscal resources away from essential governance and welfare functions.
Imposition of extraordinary financial and administrative burdens without justification or dialogue, the SIR inflicts irreparable harm on the delicate federal balance between the centre and the states. The concept of coequal constitutional units (i.e. the Centre and the State) in a framework of cooperative federalism has been recognised by the apex court in Jindal Stainless Limited v State of Haryana.
Under Section 169 of the ROPA 1951, the power to make rules lies with the Union government and the same are required to be notified in the official gazette and laid before the Parliament. “Therefore, it is evident that the Respondent (EC) does not have and cannot assume the power to lay down rules with respect to revisions of the electoral rolls.” The EC is effectively conducting enumeration and determining whether the requisites of citizenship have been satisfied or not, for the purpose of electoral rolls. The EC, however, does not have the power to assess citizenship of individuals.
Intensive revision carried out in 2002/2005 was fundamentally different from the present SIR exercise. Therefore, the same cannot be used as a precedent for the SIR. A Special Summary Revision (SSR) was conducted in Tamil Nadu between October 2024 and January 2025 which addressed issues such as migration, death and deletion of ineligible voters.
Existing electoral roll in Tamil Nadu was updated and published on 06.01.2025 under Special Summary Revision and has been continuously updated since then. “When a decision to undertake an exercise of the unprecedented scale of the SIR is made unilaterally and without prior consultation with the state government and/or any demonstrated administrative necessity and despite the recent completion of a Special Summary Revision in strict conformity with the statutory framework, it undermines the fragile and delicate edifice of trust and cooperation on which Centre and the state relations (in electoral administration) rest.” The state’s ruling party has gone to court a day after a meeting of multiple parties chaired by Chief Minister MK Stalin here decided to approach the apex court on the issue of Special Intensive Revision (SIR). PTI VGN VGN KH
This report is auto-generated from PTI news service. ThePrint holds no responsibility for its content.