‘Strikes at very heart of Constitution’: SC judge Ujjal Bhuyan on SIR mass voter deletions

Supreme Court judge Justice Ujjal Bhuyan said on Sunday that any process that disenfranchised millions of Indian citizens was “intrinsically arbitrary” and amounted to a negation of the constitutional order, stressing that no authority was above the Constitution.

Speaking at the valedictory session of the 19th Justice Bodh Raj Sawhney Memorial Moot Court Competition at NALSAR University of Law, Bhuyan said the Constitution did not envisage two classes of citizens, which are: those with voting rights and those without them.

Also Read: Around 15 police personnel injured, 110 detained during Jantar Mantar protest: Sources


Any process that resulted in the wholesale disenfranchisement of citizens would violate Articles 326 and 14, he said, according to PTI.

“If any process results in disenfranchising millions and millions of Indian citizens making them second class citizens in their own country in the sense of being citizens without a voting right, such a process is intrinsically arbitrary. No amount of whataboutery can justify it,” Bhuyan said.

“It strikes at the very heart of the Constitution and I would go to the extent of saying that it is a negation of the Constitutional order which we have adopted based under Constitution of India,” he said in the report.

Right to vote

Bhuyan said the right to vote was not merely a statutory right derived from the Representation of the People Act, 1951, but a constitutional right that formed a distinct part of democracy and was linked to the basic structure of the Constitution.

He said the right to vote was intertwined with India's struggle against foreign rule and represented the freedom achieved through years of struggle and sacrifice. Article 326, which provides for elections to the Lok Sabha and state legislative assemblies on the basis of adult suffrage, could not be “tinkered with”, he said.

“No authority can do it; no court can endorse it or condone it. No one is above the Constitution,” Bhuyan said.

The judge also referred to Supreme Court rulings on the deletion of names from electoral rolls. Section 22 of the Representation of the People Act permits deletion of a voter's name, but only after the person is given a reasonable opportunity to be heard, he said.

According to PTI, Bhuyan cited a Supreme Court judgment stating that, except in the case of a deceased person, a name once entered in the electoral roll could not be deleted without notice and an opportunity for a hearing.

“From the persona of an Indian citizen, the right to vote or right to be included in the voters list cannot be detached. It will be like taking out the soul from the body,” he said.

‘Worth of a citizen’

Bhuyan also invoked the words of US Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter, who had said that in a democracy the highest office was not that of the president but that of the citizen.

“I ask myself, what is the worth of a citizen without his/her voting rights,” Bhuyan said.

Also Read: Delhi: Three women journalists allege sexual harassment during protest, crime branch to probe

The Supreme Court judge, who previously served as NALSAR's Chancellor, also praised the university's students and faculty. He said the students had demonstrated what a law student should be and described them as “brilliant”, “bold” and “brave”.

He also praised NALSAR Vice Chancellor Srikrishna Deva Rao for leading the university and commended its faculty for discharging their responsibilities.