Supreme Court agrees to give ‘precedence’ hearing to plea against Delhi SIR

Voters who recieved notices to prove eligibility in ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) drive, queue at designated location with documents in New Delhi on September 16, 2026. | Photo Credit: Shashi Shekhar Kashyap The Supreme Court on Thursday (September 17, 2026) agreed to give “precedence” in hearing a writ petition raising discrepancies in the conduct of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in Delhi, including the removal of lakhs of voters from the draft electoral roll for nebulous reasons.A three-judge Bench headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant listed the petition filed by advocates Prashant Bhushan and Neha Rathi flagging that apart from the 47 plus lakh people removed in the draft roll, the Election Commission is preparing notices to 33 lakh people.Mr. Bhushan said the notices are being issued on two grounds - logical discrepancies and mapping.The lawyer said the electoral authorities claim logical discrepancies in the personal details of some voters. Logical discrepancies could include anything from improbable family age gaps and changing parent names to entries backed by only Aadhaar.‘Mapping’ means the exercise of verifying voters’ details with earlier records or their families’ generational voting data gleaned from earlier electoral rolls.Mr. Bhushan said the electoral authorities have not disclosed, though the rules require, the names of the people to whom they are disclosing notices.The senior lawyer submitted that the names should be disclosed in the Election Commission website.“Some people get notices, some do not. The notices do not mention the reasons why they are asked to come. They have not disclosed the reason for flagging somebody as a ‘logical discrepancy’,” Mr. Bhushan said.He said the conduct of the SIR has been “totally opaque”. Mr. Bhushan urged the court, during the oral mentioning, to list the case early for hearing.“We will list it on Monday (September 21). Such matters will have precedence,” Chief Justice Kant said.Over 97 lakh were included in the draft list published on August 31 from the 1.45 crore electors, whose enumeration forms were generated, and 47.56 lakh names were removed. Published - September 17, 2026 12:11 pm IST