DMK moves Supreme Court against electoral roll revision in Tamil Nadu

Challenging the Election Commission of India's order issued on October 27, 2025 directing a Special Intensive Revision of the electoral roll of Tamil Nadu, a writ petition has been filed before the Supreme Court of India arguing that the same is in violation of Articles 14, 19, 21, 325 and 326 of the Constitution of India as well as provisions of the Representation of the People Act, 1950 (ROPA) and the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960 (1960 Rules).

The order of ECI dated October 27, 2025 has directed for an SIR to be conducted in various States and Union Territories such as the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Gujarat, Kerala, Lakshadweep, Madhya Pradesh, Puducherry, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and the State of Tamil Nadu.

Notably, the supreme court is also seized of a batch of petitions challenging the SIR is Bihar.

The SIR orders based the order and guidelines issued on 24.06.2025 of the Election Commission of India if not set aside, can arbitrarily and without due process disenfranchise lakhs of voters from electing their representatives, thereby disrupting free and fair elections and democracy in the country, which are part of the basic structure of the Constitution, Supreme Court has been told.

"The documentation requirements of the directive, lack of due process as well as the unreasonably short timeline for the said Special Intensive Revision of Electoral Roll in the State of Tamil Nadu further make this exercise bound to result in removal of names of lakhs of genuine voters from electoral rolls leading to their disenfranchisement", the petition adds.

Filed by RS Bharathi, Organizing Secretary, Dravida Munnetra Kazgham (DMK), the petition argued that the timeline for the SIR is also unrealistic and arbitrary with Booth Level Officers having to conduct house to house enumeration, being required to repeatedly follow up with persons not available, help people fill up their forms, and make recommendations over a span of two months. 

Court has also been informed that a Special Summary Revision (SSR) was conducted in the State of Tamil Nadu between October 2024 to January 6, 2025 which addressed issues such as migration, death and deletion of ineligible voters and the existing electoral roll in Tamil Nadu was updated and published on January 6, 2025 under Special Summary Revision and has been continuously updated since then.

The plea further states that the entire process this is being done without any guidelines which renders the entire exercise arbitrary and that the timeline prescribed for Tamil Nadu coincides with a major monsoon season, followed by Christmas holidays and then Pongal. 

"The nature of the SIR process (deletion, removal, inclusion, verification of documents, disposal of claims and objections) is made more exclusionary by dint of being conducted by BLOs/AEROs/EROs, who have been given unfettered discretion at each stage. The discretion given to them must be contextualised against the fact that at the very outset of this exercise, there existed an acute shortage of AEROs and BLOs. In contrast to previous electoral roll revision cycles where trained schoolteachers and librarians were deployed, this time, contractual workers with no prior experience or training have been appointed. Therefore, within a compressed timeframe, untrained personnel have been entrusted with unchecked discretion to decide questions going to the heart of citizenship, without any governing principle or policy", court has been told.

Relying on Article 326 of the Constitution which stipulates that that every person who is a citizen, above the age of eighteen on such date as may be legislatively prescribed and is not otherwise disqualified under the Constitution or a law on the grounds of “non-residence, unsoundness of mind, crime or corrupt or illegal practice”, shall be entitled for registration as a voter, the petition argues, "The use of “shall” makes it evident that the Constitution mandates inclusion, unless disqualification has been incurred on the above specified grounds, in terms of a law".

"SIR’s rigid and arbitrary document requirement fails to accommodate the realities of disadvantaged communities who face chronic under-documentation. By imposing rigid and exclusionary requirements without accommodation for structural disadvantage, the SIR violates the guarantee of substantive equality under Article 14 and the right to universal adult suffrage under Article 326", the petition states. 

Relying on the recent SIR in Bihar, the petition states: "In the State of Bihar, 65.2 lakh existing electors who were on the Electoral Rolls as on 24.06.2025, on the ground that their filled enumeration forms were not received by 25.07.2025. The wrongfully excluded among these 65.2 lakh voters will now be compelled to reapply as fresh electors under Form 6 of the Registration of Electors Rules, which is to be submitted along with certain documentary proof. This is a denial of their statutory right to vote."

Case Title: RS Bharathi vs. Election Commission of India