I watched the Election Commission of India’s recent press conference with interest. The chief election commissioner spoke about the purity of the electoral process and the sanctity of the electoral roll. He also invoked Article 326 of the Constitution, assuring the country that the ongoing Special Intensive Revision exercise is anchored in that provision. It was, at first glance, a reassuring invocation.
But Article 326 must be read as it stands. It provides that every citizen who satisfies the prescribed conditions “shall be entitled to be registered as a voter at any such election”. The Commission may argue that the present revision exercise is intended to determine who satisfies those conditions. That is legitimate. Verification is integral to any electoral system. But there is a crucial distinction between verification and denial. The Constitution permits the State to verify eligibility; it does not permit it to deny the right to vote because that verification could not be completed in time. If a citizen has applied within the prescribed framework and has not been found ineligible, pendency of scrutiny cannot become a ground for exclusion. Administrative delay cannot override constitutional entitlement.
For decades, the Election Commission has translated this constitutional command into practice. Its campaigns have stressed that no voter should be left behind. It has gone to extraordinary lengths to operationalise that principle, including establishing polling stations for a single voter in remote locations. The chief election commissioner himself proudly announced booths for two, three or four voters. These are not symbolic gestures. They reflect a settled institutional philosophy that inclusion is the core of electoral legitimacy.
It is precisely this philosophy that is now under strain. The Commission has acknowledged that around 60 lakh electors are under adjudication, with their inclusion dependent on decisions that may not be completed before the election. Even if many cases are decided, it is unlikely that all will be resolved within the limited time available. The question is stark. What happens to those whose applications remain undecided? Can they be denied their vote because the system ran out of time?
This is not a procedural inconvenience. It is a constitutional issue. Article 326 does not permit denial of franchise on account of administrative delay. If a citizen has applied within time and has not been found ineligible, exclusion on the ground of pendency reverses the constitutional presumption.
There is also a more fundamental concern. The present exercise is not a routine revision. It is an attempt to reconstruct the rolls, setting aside what has been built over decades. Through continuous updating and correction, the Commission has achieved a level of coverage and accuracy widely acknowledged. To suggest that this accumulated effort can now be replicated in weeks or months underestimates both the scale of the task and the complexity of the electorate. What took decades cannot be compressed into a single accelerated exercise without risking exclusion.
This brings us to a deeper question. At its core, the dilemma is about how the system allocates the risk of error. Criminal jurisprudence has long settled that it is better that the guilty escape than that an innocent person be punished. Courts have acquitted the accused even in serious cases because the risk of punishing the innocent is considered an unacceptable injustice. The principle is captured in the enduring dictum that even if nine guilty persons go free, not one innocent should be punished.
Electoral democracy presents an analogous situation. The system must decide whether to err on the side of exclusion or inclusion. The consequences are not equal. If an ineligible name remains, it can be corrected later. But if an eligible citizen is denied the vote, that loss is final. A vote once denied cannot be restored.
It is therefore unacceptable to say that inclusion may carry the risk of imperfection. The law has always accepted that risk where the alternative is denial of a fundamental entitlement. To exclude citizens because their applications could not be processed in time is to impose the burden of administrative failure on the individual.
The question of complaints must also be seen in this light. The absence of recorded complaints does not establish the absence of grievance. If citizens are wrongly deleted, declared deceased, or compelled to approach courts to establish their identity, these are not isolated anomalies but complaints in substance. An overburdened field machinery and limited access to formal channels may mean that the official record understates the problem. Processing millions of applications is no small task, but constitutional rights are not suspended because the task is difficult.
The way forward lies in a simple presumption. Those who have applied within time and whose eligibility has not been rejected should not be denied the right to vote in the current election. Their status can be determined in due course. The integrity of the roll is not compromised by allowing participation. It is compromised when eligible citizens are excluded because the system could not complete its work.
Under the Representation of the People Act, 1950, electoral rolls are periodically revised, but once ‘finally published’, a roll remains in force until revised again. The law does not require a fresh revision before every election. If elections are announced before a revision is completed, the last published roll remains valid and can be used. Continuous updating may continue up to the cut-off date, but the absence of a fresh revision does not stall the process. The scheme is one of continuity.
In the present situation, therefore, two options are available. First, the election can proceed on the basis of the existing valid electoral roll, such as the roll of January 2025. Second, pending
applications may be provisionally accepted for the current election, with final adjudication continuing thereafter. Both approaches ensure that no citizen is denied a constitutional right on account of administrative delay.
Article 326 is not a formality; it is a constitutional promise that every eligible Indian shall be a voter, not at the convenience of the system but as a matter of right.
S.Y. Quraishi is former Chief Election Commissioner of India and the author of several books on democracy, the latest being Democracy’s Heartland: Inside the Battle for Power in South Asia