Scrap SIR exercise, urge scientists in letter to ECI, Centre

1. At a Glance

• Special Intensive Revision (SIR) is the Election Commission of India's (ECI) nationwide revision of electoral rolls. About 13 crore names have been removed under it. [1]
• A collective of independent scientists and academics has sent an open letter to the ECI and the Union government. They ask for SIR to be scrapped and for every eligible voter wrongly excluded to be restored at once. [1]
• UPSC relevance: the issue touches the right to vote (Art. 326), the ECI's independence and accountability (Art. 324), how inclusive the electoral rolls are, and protections for marginalised voters. These are core GS-II themes. (Article numbers not from retrieved sources; see Section 11.)

2. Why in the News

• The Hindu, 24 October 2026 (Chennai edition, p. 15, by Jacob Koshy) reports the open letter from scientists to the ECI and the Centre. [1]
• About 13 crore deletions under SIR led to mass protests. Opposition parties and youth groups have demanded the removal of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. [1]
• After weeks of protests, the ECI ordered fresh verification in some States/UTs, including Delhi. [1]

3. Background & Evolution

• What SIR is: an "intensive" revision prepares the roll afresh through house-to-house enumeration. A "summary" revision only updates the existing roll. (Standard ECI terminology; not from retrieved sources.)
• Milestones (not from retrieved sources; check against ECI and SC records):
• June 2025: ECI ordered SIR in Bihar ahead of its Assembly election, then the first such exercise in about two decades.
• 2025: the Bihar SIR was challenged in the Supreme Court (lead petitioner: ADR). The Court is reported to have directed that Aadhaar be accepted as an identity document.

• Late 2025 onwards: SIR extended in phases to other States/UTs.

• October 2026: the cumulative national figure reaches about 13 crore removals, followed by protests, partial re-verification and the scientists' letter. [1]

4. Core Static Facts

Item	Fact
Exercise	Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls [1]
Conducting body	Election Commission of India [1]
Current CEC	Gyanesh Kumar [1]
Names removed (nationwide)	About 13 crore [1]
Re-verification ordered in	Some States/UTs, including Delhi [1]
Letter addressed to	ECI and the Union government [1]
Signatories' institutions	IISc (Bengaluru); IIT Delhi; IISER Kolkata; IMSc Chennai; ICTS Bengaluru [1]
Signatories' standing	Signed in individual capacity; views are personal and do not represent their institutions [1]
Constitutional basis (not from retrieved sources)	Art. 324: ECI superintends preparation of rolls. Art. 325: no one excluded from a roll on grounds of religion, race, caste or sex. Art. 326: elections on adult suffrage (18+).
Statutory basis (not from retrieved sources)	Representation of the People Act, 1950: Sec. 21 (preparation and revision of rolls; Sec. 21(3) lets ECI order a special revision). Registration of Electors Rules, 1960

5. Multi-Dimensional Analysis

Social

• The letter says deletions fall hardest on the poor, migrant workers and marginalised communities. [1]
• Migrants who are away from their home constituency during enumeration are especially exposed to being marked "absent" or "shifted". (Analytical inference.)

Legal / Constitutional

• Wrongful exclusion denies a statutory right to vote, the gateway to universal adult franchise. [1]
• The letter cites inadequate safeguards for restoring names and no meaningful opportunity to establish eligibility. This raises natural justice (audi alteram partem) concerns. [1]
• Burden of proof: making citizens re-prove eligibility through "cumbersome procedures" reverses the usual presumption in favour of an existing elector. [1]

Ethical / Governance

• The letter says SIR lacks transparency and accountability. [1]
• Calls to remove the CEC raise questions about how independent and trusted the ECI is. Removing a CEC requires the same procedure as removing an SC judge (Art. 324(5)). (Article reference not from retrieved sources.) [1]

Administrative

• The scale (about 13 crore removals) strains the Booth Level Officer (BLO) network and the claims-and-objections process. [1]
• Ordering fresh verification in States/UTs such as Delhi amounts to the ECI admitting implementation gaps. [1]

Scientific / Data-integrity

• The scientific community's involvement points to questions about data quality, de-duplication methods and error rates in large-scale roll-cleaning. (Analytical inference; the letter's full argument is truncated in the source.) [1]

6. Recent Developments (last 12–18 months)

• 2025: SIR began in Bihar and faced Supreme Court litigation. (Not from retrieved sources.)
• 2025–26: SIR expanded to further States/UTs in phases. (Not from retrieved sources.)
• By October 2026: about 13 crore names removed nationwide. [1]
• October 2026: mass protests and demands to remove CEC Gyanesh Kumar. [1]
• October 2026: ECI orders fresh verification in some States/UTs, including Delhi. [1]
• 23–24 October 2026: open letter from scientists to the ECI and the Centre asks for SIR to be scrapped. [1]

7. Prelims Hooks

• SIR stands for Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls. [1]
• SIR is conducted by the Election Commission of India, not the Ministry of Home Affairs or the Registrar General of India. [1]
• About 13 crore names have been removed from rolls nationwide under SIR. [1]
• The CEC as of October 2026 is Gyanesh Kumar. [1]
• Delhi is among the States/UTs where the ECI ordered fresh verification after protests. [1]
• ICTS (International Centre for Theoretical Sciences) is in Bengaluru, and IMSc (Institute of Mathematical Sciences) is in Chennai. [1]
• The scientists signed in their personal capacity, not on behalf of their institutions. [1]
• (Not from retrieved sources; verify before use) Art. 324: ECI has superintendence, direction and control of the preparation of electoral rolls.
• (Not from retrieved sources) Art. 325: a single general electoral roll for each constituency, with no exclusion on grounds of religion, race, caste or sex.
• (Not from retrieved sources) Art. 326: adult suffrage; the voting age was lowered from 21 to 18 by the 61st Amendment, 1988.
• (Not from retrieved sources) Electoral rolls are prepared under the RP Act, 1950. Conduct of elections falls under the RP Act, 1951.

8. The Strongest Case for SIR, and Where It Falls Short

• The best argument for SIR: the Supreme Court has already said it is legal
• In May 2026 the Supreme Court upheld the Bihar SIR. It held that the ECI had not gone beyond its powers under the law [2].
• The Court also linked clean rolls to fair elections [2]. A roll full of dead or shifted voters opens the door to fake voting.

• So the scientists' demand to scrap SIR runs against a ruling of the highest court. Mending it is a more realistic path than ending it.

• The ECI also says checking citizenship is its job

• The ECI told the Court it has the right to verify citizenship during roll revision [7].

• It rejected the charge that it was unfairly pushing the burden of proof onto voters [7].

• Where this case falls short: being legal does not mean the work was accurate

• The Court ruled on whether the ECI had the power to run SIR. It did not certify how many deletions were correct [2].
• Even in Bihar, the Court had to step in many times while SIR was running. It ordered the ECI to accept Aadhaar for claims [4] and to publish the deleted names with reasons [3].
• Those orders show that the ECI's own design did not protect voters well enough until a court stepped in.

9. What Bihar's Numbers Tell Us About the 13 Crore Figure

• The first deletion number in Bihar was too high
• The Bihar draft roll first left out about 65 lakh names. After claims were heard, final deletions fell to about 47 lakh [2].
• So about 18 lakh people, more than one in four of those first removed, got back on the roll.

• Each of them had been wrongly struck off at the first stage.

• So 13 crore is a count, not a measure of error

• The national figure of about 13 crore removals [1] mixes real cleaning (dead, shifted or duplicate entries) with wrongful exclusions.
• The headline number cannot tell you how big each part is. Only checking a sample of deleted names on the ground can.

• This is likely why scientists, who are trained to measure error rates, have entered the debate [1].

• What gets fixed depends on who can file a claim

• Bihar's 18 lakh were restored only because they filed claims [2].
• A migrant worker away from home, or a voter who cannot read a public notice, is less likely to file one.

• So the people left wrongly deleted at the end are mostly the groups the letter is worried about [1].

• Bihar's net loss was about 6% of the roll

• Total electors fell from 7.89 crore to 7.42 crore [2].

10. Who Must Prove What: The Burden-of-Proof Fight

• The old rule: no deletion without a hearing
• In Lal Babu Hussein v. Electoral Registration Officer (1995), the Supreme Court held that a name can be deleted only after the person gets a reasonable chance to show cause [5].
• Show cause means being told why the state plans to act, and getting a chance to answer before it does.

• Deleting names in bulk through house-to-house forms puts this one-by-one hearing under pressure.

• The open question: is an existing voter presumed to be a citizen?

• Petitioners told the Court that Lal Babu Hussein gives voters already on the roll a presumption of citizenship. A presumption means the state must prove otherwise, not the voter [6].
• The 2026 judgment records this as the petitioners' argument. It is a contested point, not a settled finding [6].

• The ECI's view is that it may verify citizenship and is not unfairly shifting the burden [7].

• Why this matters for an exam answer

• If the voter must prove eligibility, people with few documents (the poor, migrants) are the most likely to lose their vote.
• If the state must prove ineligibility, the ECI has to show evidence before deleting a name. This is the natural-justice line the letter draws [1].

11. Fixes the Supreme Court Has Already Tested

• ECI should publish every deleted name, with the reason, in every State
• In Bihar, the Supreme Court ordered the ECI to publish the list of about 65 lakh excluded voters, with a reason for each [3].
• The names were made searchable by EPIC number (the number on the voter ID card) [3].

• Applied nationwide, this answers the letter's complaint about missing transparency [1] without scrapping the exercise.

• ECI should accept Aadhaar for claims everywhere

• The Court directed the ECI to accept Aadhaar in Bihar [4], and excluded voters could file claims with it [3].

• Aadhaar is not proof of citizenship. But it is the document the poor are most likely to have, so it makes filing a claim easier.

• Appeal decisions should reach the roll before polling day

• In April 2026 the Court directed that decisions of appellate tribunals be added through a supplementary revised roll [8].

• Without this, a voter who wins an appeal after the roll is frozen still cannot vote.

• ECI should check a random sample of deletions on the ground

• Bihar's fall from 65 lakh to 47 lakh deletions [2] shows the first-stage error rate can be large.
• Re-checking a random sample of deleted names in each State would give an error rate the public can trust.
• The ECI's fresh verification in Delhi and other States [1] could be built around such a sample.

12. Anchors for Answers

• Data: Bihar SIR: first-stage deletions of about 65 lakh fell to about 47 lakh after claims. Electors fell from 7.89 crore to 7.42 crore [2]
• Data: About 13 crore names removed nationwide under SIR by October 2026 [1]
• Law/Case: Lal Babu Hussein v. ERO (1995): no deletion from the roll without a reasonable chance to show cause [5]
• Law/Case: Supreme Court, May 2026 (2026 INSC 564): SIR upheld as within the ECI's statutory powers [2][6]
• Law/Case: Supreme Court, Aug 2025: publish Bihar's deleted names with reasons, searchable by EPIC [3], and accept Aadhaar for claims [4]

13. Mains Relevance

• GS-II: Salient features of the Representation of People's Act; appointment to constitutional posts and the powers, functions and responsibilities of constitutional bodies (ECI); welfare of vulnerable sections.
• GS-IV (secondary): accountability and transparency in public institutions.
• Question stems: 1. "Clean electoral rolls are essential, but not at the cost of inclusive franchise." Critically examine this in the context of the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls. (15 marks) 2. Discuss the safeguards needed to protect migrant workers and marginalised groups from wrongful disenfranchisement during electoral roll revisions. (10 marks) 3. The credibility of the Election Commission depends on transparency as much as autonomy. Analyse this in light of recent controversies over electoral roll revision. (15 marks)

14. Related Topics to Study Next

• Representation of the People Acts, 1950 and 1951: the statutory basis for preparing rolls and conducting elections.
• Appointment and removal of the CEC and ECs: the CEC and Other ECs Act, 2023, and Art. 324(5). This matters given the demands to remove the CEC.
• Aadhaar–Voter ID (EPIC) linking: the Election Laws (Amendment) Act, 2021 and the data-integrity debate.
• Remote voting / RVM for domestic migrants: directly relevant to migrant disenfranchisement.
• National Register of Citizens (Assam): a precedent for large-scale exclusion through documentary verification.
• SVEEP (Systematic Voters' Education and Electoral Participation): the ECI's inclusion programme, which contrasts with mass deletions.
• One Nation One Election and delimitation: related electoral reform debates.

15. NCERT Concepts to Revise

• Special Intensive Revision (Polity): This is the exercise the scientists want scrapped; know how it works and why exclusion worries critics.
• Electoral roll (Polity): SIR rewrites the rolls; deletions from them decide who can vote, so know how rolls are prepared.
• Election Commission of India (Polity): ECI runs SIR and faces questions on transparency and independence; know its constitutional powers.
• Right to vote (Polity): Wrongful deletion raises whether voting is a statutory or fundamental right, a likely exam angle.
• Representation of the People Act 1950 (Polity): This Act is the legal basis for preparing and revising rolls, a common Prelims trap versus the 1951 Act.
• Chief Election Commissioner (Polity): Protesters demand the CEC's removal; know his appointment and the Supreme Court-judge-style removal procedure.

16. Common Errors / Trap Areas

• Summary vs intensive revision: an intensive revision builds the roll afresh. A summary revision only updates the existing roll.
• RP Act 1950 vs 1951: rolls fall under the 1950 Act. Conduct of elections and disqualifications fall under the 1951 Act.
• Voter roll vs citizenship register: the ECI checks eligibility to be an elector. It does not formally determine citizenship, which is the MHA's role under the Citizenship Act, 1955. (Not from retrieved sources.)
• Institutions vs individuals: the letter was signed by individuals. IISc, IIT Delhi and the other institutions did not endorse it. [1]
• CEC removal vs EC removal: the CEC is removed like an SC judge. Other ECs are removed on the CEC's recommendation. (Not from retrieved sources.)