On January 15, 2026, the Supreme Court asked the Election Commission of India if voters who survived many electoral roll revisions can be assumed as citizens. The Bench, including Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi, referred to a 1995 case where the court ruled people already on voter lists need not prove citizenship again. Justice Bagchi said, “If my name appears in the voter list, there is a presumption I am a citizen.” He asked senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi, representing the EC, for a response. Mr. Dwivedi said the EC must confirm citizenship only to register voters. He explained that EC’s role is not to decide how long a person can stay in India or their visa status. The Chief Justice clarified that the EC can check if a person claiming citizenship is genuine to include them in the voter list. Justice Bagchi also questioned if Bihar’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR), which waived some document demands for voters, erased earlier electoral roll revisions from 2003 to 2025. Mr. Dwivedi defended SIR as a “soft-touch, liberal approach,” not a detailed scrutiny. He said the electoral roll from January 2025 was included in the SIR. He added the goal of EC is to help voters and promote adult suffrage. Dwivedi said people not on voter lists had to provide documents like Aadhaar. He noted that none of the 65 lakh people removed in Bihar appealed against their deletion. The deleted names were of dead people, migrants, or duplicates. He asked, “Why do they want dead people in the voter list or double entries? It looks like somebody wants to exploit the situation.” Mr. Dwivedi said no voter complained about wrongful exclusion. EC’s aim is to maximize voting rights, he said, adding “Disenfranchisement is different from removing dead or duplicate voters.”