Delivering a major victory for the Election Commission, the Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld its power to conduct a Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter rolls and said the exercise “breathes life” into the constitutional mandate for fair elections.

The bench headed by CJI Surya Kant held that the exercise advances the “constitutional imperative of free and fair elections”. Disposing of a batch of petitions challenging the SIR exercise in Bihar, the apex court held that deletion from the voter list does not amount to a legal declaration that an individual is not a citizen. The top court agreed with the EC’s grounds for the SIR.