Should the burden of proving eligibility rest on the citizen or on the State in electoral roll revision? Analyse with reference to recent judicial pronouncements.

Article 326 gives every adult citizen the vote. Section 16 of the RP Act, 1950 bars non-citizens from the roll [1]. Special Intensive Revisions (SIRs) have revived the question of who must prove eligibility. Recent judgments point to a shared burden that weighs more heavily on the State.

Burden on the citizen: the case for it

• Citizenship as a precondition: In ADR v. ECI (May 2026), the Supreme Court called citizenship a "condition precedent" for enrolment. It allowed the ECI a limited enquiry into citizenship [1].
• Rebuttable presumption: Being on the roll creates a presumption that the entry is valid. This presumption can be rebutted. If an applicant's documents "do not inspire confidence", the ECI may refuse or delete the entry [1].
• Roll purity: Bihar's last intensive revision was in 2003. Because of migration and urbanisation, the Court found the SIR proportionate [1].

Burden on the State: the case for it

• Presumption favours the elector: A listed elector is presumed valid. Any enquiry must respect that presumption and stay open to judicial review [1].
• Draft roll is no ground for deletion: In October 2026, the Bombay HC (Goa Bench) held that names cannot be deleted from a draft roll without a hearing. A family of six filed Form 8 for a change of address. The ERONET software offered officials only one option, "reject", and their names were deleted [2].
• State's own lapses: The Bench said citizens may ask "why this SIR after 24 years". Stale records are the State's failure, not the voter's [2].
• Unequal harm: A wrongly retained name can still be caught at the polling booth. A wrongly deleted name means a vote that is lost for good. That loss falls mostly on migrants, tenants and the poor.
• Limits on the ECI: Only the authority under the Citizenship Act can decide citizenship. Doubtful cases must be referred to it and decided after notice and hearing, preferably before the next election [1].

The judgments therefore point to a graded model. The citizen gives reasonable proof of eligibility. The State must justify any deletion and cannot leave it to software. The way forward is:

• a "refer to ERO" option in ERONET in place of "reject" only;
• mandatory notice before any deletion;
• a wider list of accepted documents, including Aadhaar [1];
• BLO-assisted correction.

This keeps rolls clean while honouring Article 326. It also fits the EC's core mandate of keeping as many eligible voters on the roll as possible [2].