New Delhi: Supreme Court Validated on Wednesday Election CommissionThe decision to conduct Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of Bihar voter lists rejected the opposition’s stand that it was an arbitrary and exclusionary exercise and said the SIR was carried out in accordance with the constitutional mandate of the Election Commission to ensure free and fair elections, which are based on the integrity, accuracy and correctness of the voter lists.A bench of CJI Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi also said that while preparing the voter list, the election panel is empowered to make a preliminary inquiry into the citizenship of a person wishing to be included as a voter as only an Indian can exercise the franchise.Writing a 124-page judgment disposing of a dozen petitions filed by NGO Association for Democratic Reforms, social activist Yogendra Yadav, TMC’s Mahua Moitra, RJD’s Manoj Kumar Jha and Congress’s KC Venugopal, among others, CJI Kant said, “The Election Commission has the power to conduct a limited inquiry of citizenship in the exercise of its constitutional mandate for the purpose of satisfying itself about the eligibility for inclusion in the electoral list. Is.“This rejects the petitioners’ stand that the Election Commission has no power to inquire into the citizenship status of voters for the purpose of inclusion or deletion from the electoral roll, although the Supreme Court clarified that such inquiry does not determine citizenship in the true sense of the term, and any subsequent action is limited to the electoral results only.Send list of removed voters to Home Ministry: Supreme Court tells Election CommissionUpholding the special intensive revision (SIR) of Bihar voter list, the Supreme Court on Wednesday directed the Election Commission to send the list of names of people removed from the voter list due to ‘doubtful citizenship’ to the competent authority (Home Ministry) within four weeks for decision on their citizenship under the Citizenship Act, 1955.The order comes amid heightened scrutiny of citizenship claims of many people and tightening of borders, and details collected by the Election Commission could potentially help the Home Ministry trace and deport foreigners who have crossed from Bangladesh illegally.“The competent authority shall, after giving notice to the removed persons and giving them an opportunity of being heard, preferably before the next Parliamentary, Assembly, local body elections, whichever is earlier, take necessary decision in accordance with law,” the bench said. If they are found to be Indian citizens, their names will be included in the voter list, the bench said.On the need for conducting the SIR exercise in Bihar, which was raised by the petitioners, the bench said that since it is being conducted after a gap of 23 years and considering the nature of the problems and the procedural safeguards as well as the scale of the exercise, the EC cannot be held arbitrarily to carry out the mandate.The challenge to the number of documents required to be produced by voters during the SIR probe was also rejected by the CJI-led bench, which said, “The classification of documents, including the exclusion of certain categories (other than Aadhaar card, which was directed to be included by the SC on September 8 last year), is based on sensible norms having direct bearing on the objective of ensuring the integrity of the electoral roll.“