Cross-border migration may imply citizenship check in Bihar voter rolls: Supreme Court

THe sublime margaret court on th observed that the thought of verifying citizenship may non be alien to the notification for holding special intensive revision (SIR) as the term migration — one of the grounds cited by the Election Commission of India (ECI) for revising rolls — may also include cross-border migration as well.Hearing arguments in an ongoing proceeding where the SIR in Bihar has been challenged in a bunch of petitions accusing the ECI of disenfranchising citizens on mere suspicion of citizenship, a bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant and justice Joymalya Bagchi said, “Migration can be trans-country. It may not be within the country alone.”The court was responding to senior advocate Raju Ramachandran appearing for one of the petitioners who said that if the ECI was required to determine citizenship, it should have stated so clearly in its June 24 order declaring SIR for Bihar. The only two grounds suggested were “rapid urbanisation” and “frequent migration of population from one place to another” for education, livelihood and other reasons.“The June 24 order does not envisage a situation of someone coming from a foreign country. What EC saw as a concern was not that at all. As a spilloff, can the EC use its ancillary power and extend it to this level that a booth level officer (BLO) can suspect and take you out of the roll. This is dangerous and use of such plenary power when there already exists a statutory process to verify citizenship makes it unconstitutional,” Ramachandran said.The bench replied, “The idea of citizenship you claim is alien to the SIR notification but migration may not have an inbuilt domestic import. There is migration across borders in all economic gradients. It can be livelihood that drives people to cross foreign shores. We also have brain drain that is also migration.” At the same time, the court clarified that these are not its “conclusions” but to evoke the best arguments from the lawyers for a better appreciation of the issue.The court said that such an exercise is not an annual feature but is being conducted in the state after over two decades, the last time being in 2003. “The ECI has a duty of preserving the purity and integrity of elections. Can they not engage in some kind of purifying and sieving process…this kind of an inquisitorial role is what we suggested on the last occasion. In such a fact-finding inquiry, no ‘blind eye theory’ is to be applied,” the bench observed.Ramachandran’s argument stated that the ECI has a constitutional duty to enable voters and not disable them and in carrying out an en masse exercise across several states proceeds on a suspicion when such an exercise should begin on the point of trust.“Even an inquisitorial role cannot be assumed by ECI as effectively what ECI is doing is to disenfranchise persons by striking them off the rolls and suspending their citizenship in course of an exercise which does not contemplate it,” Ramachandran said.The court assumed that if this argument is to be accepted then the ECI has to simply accept the existing electoral roll as it is. “Suppose you find out some persons have misused, does it give a good picture about the functioning of a constitutional body (like ECI) or should it not address the loopholes (in the electoral roll),” the bench asked.Ramachandran further pointed out that after Bihar, ECI has done a “copy paste” job by replicating the exercise across nine states and three union territories. He said that SIR requires the ECI to record reasons and by extending SIR to other states on the same grounds, it shows non-application of mind by the poll panel.The court posted the matter for December 16 when the ECI is expected to respond to the submissions made by petitioners represented by a battery of senior lawyers led by senior advocates Kapil Sibal and Abhishek Manu Singhvi among others. The court is also expected to hear petitions challenging SIR in Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Puducherry and West Bengal next week.Over the past weeks, the court has been hearing arguments on a set of petitions filed by political parties, parliamentarians, political activists and non-profit organisations among others challenging the SIR in Bihar and the second phase implemented in other states.