Neutral administrative criteria can produce discriminatory outcomes. Discuss with reference to recent electoral roll revisions, and suggest safeguards.

Indirect discrimination happens when a rule names no group but still burdens one group much more than others. The recent Special Intensive Revisions (SIR) of electoral rolls show how "neutral" data checks can weaken Article 326's promise of universal adult franchise.

How neutral criteria discriminate

• Proxy effect: criteria linked to poverty or schooling end up standing in for identity. Family size follows wealth and education. National TFR fell to 2.0 in NFHS-5 [3], yet older electors from large families are still caught by such checks.
• Unequal capacity to comply: migrants, tenants and the poor without papers find it hardest to answer notices. A uniform burden therefore falls unevenly.
• Script mismatch: the same name written in Hindi, Urdu and English produces spelling "errors". These come from transliteration, not fraud.

Evidence from recent revisions

• Delhi SIR (2026): the software raised "logical discrepancy" flags for family size, a parent's age at the elector's birth and name spelling. None of these tests a statutory condition: being a citizen, aged 18 or more, ordinarily resident and not disqualified [1]. Press analyses of the draft rolls reported that Muslim electors were flagged well above their share of the roll, especially under the family-size flags.
• Burden reversal: Lal Babu Hussein (1995) set out that an entry can be deleted only after the person gets a reasonable opportunity to be heard [1]. Mass flags instead make electors prove entries that are already on the roll.
• Bihar SIR (2025): the Supreme Court had to allow claims with Aadhaar or any one of 11 documents, filed online [4]. This shows the default design kept many people out.
• Counterpoint: rolls do contain dead and duplicate entries, and cleaning them is the ECI's duty under Article 324 [1]. The flaw is in the method, not the purpose.

Safeguards

• Flags tied to eligibility only: drop the family-size, parental-age and spelling checks. Write the permitted flags into the ECI's Manual on Electoral Rolls [2].
• Disparate-impact audit: publish each flag's logic and how many names it caught, constituency by constituency, before anyone is deleted.
• Due process: written notice, a hearing and a reasoned order from the Electoral Registration Officer [1]. Extend the Bihar relaxations to every state [4].
• Judicial scrutiny: test the criteria against Articles 14 and 15 for indirect discrimination.

A rule that is neutral on paper is not automatically fair in practice. Its outcomes decide whether it discriminates. Cleaning the rolls and keeping every eligible voter on them can go together if each flag is linked to legal eligibility, made public and open to challenge. Such a design would uphold Article 326 and SDG 16.7, which calls for inclusive and representative decision-making.