The Supreme Court stepped into a heated electoral controversy in Bihar, where the ongoing Special Intensive Revision of voter rolls has sparked widespread debate. At the heart of the matter was whether Aadhaar should be accepted as a valid proof of voter identity. With electoral integrity and the constitutional right to vote hanging in the balance, the Court’s decision sought to ensure that the voter list remains clean and accurate, while also protecting the franchise of marginalized citizens, migrant workers, and other vulnerable groups at risk of being excluded.
The Election Commission of India launched the first Special Intensive Revision of Bihar’s electoral rolls since 2003, resulting in a dramatic drop in the number of registered voters from 7.9 crore to 7.24 crore. Under the ECI’s guidelines, citizens could submit any of 11 specified identity documents to verify their voter credentials. However, political parties like the Rashtriya Janata Dal and All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen challenged this process. They argued that many genuine voters, particularly the poor and migrant workers who mostly hold only Aadhaar cards, were being unfairly excluded. The petitioners claimed that the ECI’s refusal to accept Aadhaar amounted to disenfranchisement of a large section of the electorate.
Represented by Senior Advocates Kapil Sibal and Gopal Sankaranarayanan, the petitioners urged the Court to direct the ECI to accept Aadhaar as a twelfth identity document. They argued that the 11 currently accepted documents were often inaccessible to ordinary citizens, whereas Aadhaar has near universal coverage. Petitioners highlighted that the ECI’s own manuals and Form 6 allow for Aadhaar use, but local polling officials were rejecting it and even issuing show cause notices to Booth Level Officers who accepted it. They contended that this selective refusal effectively targeted poor voters and risked removing them from the rolls.
The ECI, represented by Senior Advocate Rakesh Dwivedi, opposed including Aadhaar on the same footing as documents like passports. Dwivedi stressed that Aadhaar legally serves only as proof of identity, not citizenship. He further submitted that over 99 percent of claims and objections from draft voters had already been received and processed, and that allowing Aadhaar would serve no practical purpose while potentially opening the door to illegal immigrants holding fraudulent Aadhaar cards. The ECI emphasized that the Special Intensive Revision was intended as a purification exercise to maintain a clean voter list and detect ineligible entries.
A bench comprising Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi noted that while Aadhaar is a reliable tool for identity verification, it cannot be treated as proof of citizenship. Referencing the Aadhaar Act 2016 and the landmark Justice K S Puttaswamy (Retd.), and ANR. Vs. Union of India and Ors judgment, the Court recognized that the main source of confusion in Bihar’s Special Intensive Revision was largely a trust issue. The bench also acknowledged that the other 11 documents, except for passports, similarly fail to conclusively prove citizenship. To address the trust deficit and assist voters, the Court directed the Bihar State Legal Services Authority to deploy paralegal volunteers across the state.
The Court directed the Election Commission of India to accept Aadhaar as the twelfth prescribed document for voter identity in the Bihar Special Intensive Revision. Importantly, the Court clarified that Aadhaar would be used solely as proof of identity, not citizenship. The ECI was empowered to verify the authenticity of all submitted documents, including Aadhaar, to ensure that only genuine citizens are included in the electoral rolls.
The Court further instructed the ECI to issue clear guidelines for accepting Aadhaar and to publicize the order widely, ensuring that eligible voters are not disenfranchised.
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