How can the burden of proving eligibility shift onto voters during roll revisions? Suggest safeguards to prevent wrongful deletion.

Article 324 gives the Election Commission of India (ECI) control over electoral rolls. In Lal Babu Hussein v. Electoral Registration Officer (1995), however, the Supreme Court held that whether a person is a citizen needs careful, quasi-judicial scrutiny of evidence [5]. A roll entry therefore cannot be struck off on suspicion alone. Intensive revisions such as the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) can quietly reverse this protection.

How the burden shifts onto voters

• Fresh enumeration: an intensive revision prepares the roll afresh through house-to-house enumeration [2]. Voters enrolled for decades must again submit forms to prove they qualify.
• Document gatekeeping: officials initially refused Aadhaar as a stand-alone document. The Supreme Court then ordered it accepted as the 12th document [7].
• "Absent" presumption: about 36 lakh of the roughly 65 lakh Bihar draft exclusions were marked "permanently shifted/absent" [3]. This often meant only that the booth officer did not find the person at home, which penalises seasonal migrants.
• Mapping errors: voters in Kolkata and Delhi received notices over "mapping discrepancies" with old rolls, were asked to prove citizenship, or were wrongly marked dead [1].
• Voters carry the cost of errors: Bihar's electors fell from 7.89 crore to 7.24 crore in the draft. The final roll reached 7.42 crore only after claims and objections, which voters had to file themselves [4].

Safeguards against wrongful deletion

• Presumption of eligibility: the Supreme Court's 2026 SIR ruling treats an existing entry as presumed valid until a proper inquiry [6]. Deletion should not count as a finding of non-citizenship, and doubtful cases should go to the authority under the Citizenship Act, 1955 [6].
• Due process: no deletion without notice, a hearing and a reasoned order [5]. This should be written into the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960 for every State.
• Transparency: publish deleted names booth by booth, with reasons, before the final roll, as was done in Bihar after the Supreme Court's direction [8].
• Identity vs. citizenship: accept Aadhaar to establish identity at the claims stage, and keep citizenship as a separate check [7].
• Targeted clean-up: use death-registration data and de-duplication tools instead of asking every voter to prove eligibility again.
• Accountability: require a re-visit before marking anyone "absent", and place an SIR outcome report before Parliament showing deletions by reason and by State.

Clean rolls and inclusive rolls do not conflict. Purging dead and duplicate entries is legitimate, but shifting proof onto existing voters is not. Statutory due process, transparency and targeted verification can deliver accurate rolls while honouring universal adult franchise (Article 326) and SDG 16.7's goal of inclusive decision-making.