The Supreme Court of India on 26 May 2026 delivered a landmark judgment upholding the validity of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls conducted by the Election Commission of India (ECI) in Bihar and other states. The bench framed four broad legal questions: (1) whether the ECI had the authority to conduct the SIR exercise; (2) whether the process was proportionate and legally justified; (3) whether it violated the Representation of the People Act, 1950; and (4) whether the poll body could scrutinise citizenship issues during electoral roll verification. The Court answered all four in favour of the ECI. On the critical citizenship question, the Court concluded that the Commission is empowered to examine questions bearing upon citizenship in the course of preparing or revising electoral rolls, but such an inquiry can only be undertaken from the limited standpoint of determining inclusion or exclusion from the electoral rolls and must be carried out with due regard to the presumption operating in favour of an elector whose name already exists on the rolls. The judgment also clarified that the process included procedural safeguards such as the requirement of issuing show-cause notices before any deletions. The case arose from multiple petitions challenging the SIR exercise in Bihar, where the ECI reportedly removed around 65 lakh names from draft voter lists during the revision. The Court held that the SIR has a nexus with the Constitutional goal of free and fair elections under Article 324, which vests superintendence of elections in the Election Commission.