Discuss the constitutional and statutory basis of the Election Commission's power to conduct a Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls. Examine the tension between roll accuracy and the risk of disenfranchisement.

The Special Intensive Revision (SIR) is a time-bound, door-to-door re-verification of electoral rolls, distinct from the routine annual summary revision. Its legitimacy rests on the Election Commission's plenary superintendence over elections, but its scale has made the accuracy–inclusion trade-off a live constitutional question.

Constitutional and statutory basis

• Article 324 vests in the ECI the superintendence, direction and control of the preparation of electoral rolls — a reservoir of power upheld as covering intensive verification [2].
• Section 21(3), Representation of the People Act, 1950 allows the Commission, for reasons recorded in writing, to direct a special revision of the roll for any constituency in such manner as it thinks fit [1].
• In Association for Democratic Reforms v. ECI (27 May 2026), the Supreme Court upheld SIR as constitutional and proportionate, while holding that any citizenship inquiry has only limited electoral consequences, not a final determination under the Citizenship Act [2].
• SIR is thus not a new statutory creation but an exercise of existing powers, rolled out in phases across all States and UTs [3].

The accuracy–disenfranchisement tension

• Case for purity: rolls carrying dead, shifted or duplicate electors invite impersonation; ECI deletes only after BLO house-to-house verification under four heads — death, permanent shifting, duplication, untraceability [3].
• Case for caution: in the third-phase draft rolls, electors in 17 States/UTs fell 15.7% from 2024 levels, with Delhi down 35.89% and Maharashtra losing 1.59 crore [5]; deletions dwarfed additions.
• Documentary burden falls hardest on migrants, the urban poor and women, since Aadhaar was not accepted as citizenship proof.
• Bihar's pilot showed the corrective value of claims, objections and appeals, which trimmed exclusions substantially before final publication [4].

Accuracy and inclusion are complements, not rivals: a clean roll is credible only if no genuine elector is lost. Strengthening BLO training, transparent reason-wise deletion data and free legal aid for appeals can deliver both — securing the "free and fair elections" that form part of the Constitution's basic structure.