The Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to grant an urgent hearing on a plea challenging West Bengal government orders that allegedly link welfare benefits to exclusions from electoral rolls following the special intensive revision (SIR) exercise, asking the petitioner instead to approach the Calcutta High Court.
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A bench of justices BV Nagarathna and Joymalya Bagchi observed that the challenge raised an independent cause of action concerning eligibility for welfare schemes and public distribution benefits, making the high court the appropriate forum to consider the matter in the first instance.
The plea was mentioned by advocate Prasanna S on behalf of Paschim Banga Khet Majoor Samity, an agricultural workers’ union, which has challenged a June 4 order issued by the West Bengal Food and Supplies Department and a May 19 notification of the Department of Women and Child Development and Social Welfare.
According to the petition, both measures link beneficiary status under the Public Distribution System (PDS) and the Annapurna Yojana to classifications generated during the SIR exercise, including categories such as “dead”, “shifted”, “deleted” and “absentee” electors. The petitioner contended that the linkage could potentially render between 35 lakh (3.5 million) and 60 lakh (6 million) ration cards inactive if implemented mechanically by the State government.
Seeking an urgent listing, Prasanna submitted that the Supreme Court had recently upheld the legality of the SIR exercise in the Association for Democratic Reforms case and that similar attempts to connect SIR outcomes with welfare entitlements were emerging in other states as well. He argued that the issue therefore had ramifications beyond West Bengal.
The bench, however, was unconvinced.
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Questioning the maintainability of the petition under Article 32 of the Constitution, the bench observed that the grievance before the court was distinct from the challenge to the SIR exercise itself. The real issue, it pointed out, was whether individuals excluded from electoral rolls could be denied ration benefits or removed from welfare schemes.
“Why have you filed this under Article 32?” asked the bench, pointing out that the petition raised a separate cause of action concerning continuation of welfare benefits and PDS entitlements.
When Prasanna argued that the matter had nationwide implications and warranted consideration by the apex court, the bench reiterated that the challenge related to state action affecting welfare benefits and should first be examined by the jurisdictional high court.
Noting that the Calcutta High Court had reopened after the summer vacation, the bench told the petitioner: “Please take it to the Calcutta High Court.”
The petition argues that the impugned orders violate Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution because exclusion from electoral rolls under the SIR process neither establishes loss of citizenship nor determines economic vulnerability, both of which are unrelated to eligibility for food security benefits.
It further contends that the State’s action amounts to an impermissible use of data collected for one statutory purpose — electoral roll revision, for an entirely different purpose, namely determining entitlement to welfare schemes.
The challenge relies in part on observations made by the Supreme Court itself while upholding the SIR exercise, where it clarified that electoral-roll exclusions have consequences confined to the electoral process and do not amount to a final determination of citizenship status.
The present plea comes weeks after the Supreme Court, in a judgment delivered on May 27, upheld the constitutional validity of the Election Commission’s SIR exercise.
In a 124-page judgment authored by a bench led by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justice Bagchi, the court rejected a batch of petitions challenging the legality of the SIR process first undertaken in Bihar and subsequently extended across the country.
The court held that the exercise was traceable to Section 21(3) of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, read with Article 324 of the Constitution and was intended to further the constitutional objective of free and fair elections.
Rejecting arguments that the Election Commission had exceeded its authority, the bench ruled that the poll body possessed constitutional power to undertake a limited inquiry into citizenship for electoral purposes. At the same time, it emphasised that any conclusions reached during the exercise would have consequences only for electoral participation and would not amount to a binding determination of citizenship under the Citizenship Act.
The court further clarified that deletion from electoral rolls does not extinguish an individual’s claim to citizenship and cannot substitute adjudication by authorities empowered under the Citizenship Act, 1955.
It directed that persons whose names were removed from electoral rolls on suspicion of being non-citizens must be referred by the Election Commission to the competent authority under the Citizenship Act within four weeks for adjudication after notice and hearing.
The petitioners in the SIR challenge had included Association for Democratic Reforms, People’s Union for Civil Liberties, political leaders Manoj Kumar Jha, KC Venugopal, Mahua Moitra and activist Yogendra Yadav, who had argued that the exercise resulted in large-scale disenfranchisement and effectively converted the Election Commission into a citizenship-adjudicating authority. The Supreme Court rejected those contentions while defining the limits of the Commission’s powers and preserving the distinction between electoral eligibility and citizenship determination.
