A collective of former civil servants has issued a strongly worded open assertion warning that the Election Fee of India’s (ECI) Particular Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar threatens the very basis of Indian democracy — common grownup suffrage.

Of their assertion, the Constitutional Conduct Group (CCG), comprising retired members of the All India and Central Companies, mentioned the revision train risked disenfranchising tens of millions of residents, significantly the poor and marginalised, who lack sufficient documentation to show their citizenship. The group emphasised that it has no political affiliations and is guided solely by constitutional values of neutrality and impartiality.

In response to the CCG, India’s electoral system traditionally functioned on the precept of inclusion, presuming citizenship until disputed, with the ECI proactively making certain that even these in distant and marginalised communities had been introduced into the electoral course of. The present train, they argue, reverses this precept by inserting the burden of proof on voters themselves.

The previous bureaucrats famous that earlier a liberal strategy to documentation was adopted, acknowledging the widespread lack of official papers among the many poor. In contrast, the SIR has launched inflexible necessities that would strip voting rights from tens of millions who’ve been registered in successive elections since 2003.

Explicit concern was raised over the ECI’s choice to privilege the 2003 electoral rolls. Electors included in that 12 months’s roll are exempted from offering recent documentation, and their kids are additionally eligible by means of this route. The CCG mentioned this created an “untenable, unjust and discriminatory” hierarchy, ignoring all subsequent rolls printed within the final twenty years, together with these used within the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

The assertion accuses the ECI of successfully introducing the controversial Nationwide Register of Residents (NRC) “by means of the backdoor” below the guise of sanitising voter lists.

The CCG cited a number of media reviews, significantly video investigations by journalist Ajit Anjum, displaying widespread irregularities. Proof allegedly contains solid signatures, bulk-filling of kinds by Sales space Degree Officers (BLOs), enrolments of deceased people, and staged pictures of villagers holding voter kinds, which had been later confiscated by officers.

The CCG mentioned the “breakneck” tempo of the SIR, mixed with insufficient infrastructure and opaque procedures, has vitiated your complete course of. The group warned that the continuation and potential enlargement of this train past Bihar may turn out to be “one of many greatest threats Indian democracy has confronted, from the very establishment that’s meant to uphold the system of common suffrage.”

Stating that their petitions to the ECI in earlier issues had been “ignored and casually dismissed”, the civil servants addressed their letter on to the general public, urging the mobilisation of opinion to strain the Fee into corrective motion.

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CCG Open Assertion on the Particular Intensive Revision (SIR) of Electoral Rolls in Bihar

July 29, 2025

We’re a bunch of former civil servants of the All India and Central Companies who’ve labored within the Central and State Governments throughout our careers. As a bunch, now we have no affiliation with any political social gathering however consider in impartiality, neutrality and dedication to the Structure of India.

1. We’re writing in the present day to precise our alarm at what seems to be an assault on the very foundations of our democracy – the system of common grownup suffrage, i.e. the citizen’s proper to vote. The assault is an insidious one the place the purported try to scrub up and sanitise the electoral rolls is prone to find yourself disenfranchising a really massive phase of the voting inhabitants, significantly the poor and the marginalised, who possess little or no official documentation as proof of their citizenship.
2. For all of the 73 years for the reason that first Normal Elections had been held, the overwhelming majority of the poor in India have held their Proper to Vote as their most elementary stake in Indian democracy. All through, the precept adopted has been that, until anybody disputes their standing, they’re presumed to be residents and. subsequently, makes an attempt must be made to make sure that everyone seems to be included as a voter. In truth, in full distinction to the style wherein the ‘new’ Election Fee of India (ECI) is functioning, the try previously was to see that no grownup Indian was neglected of the enfranchisement course of and the ECI took it as its solemn duty to incorporate individuals residing within the remotest corners of the nation as voters, nevertheless marginal their lives could be. The main target was on inclusion and never exclusion on account of alleged ineligibility.
3. Thus far, a liberal and versatile strategy to documentary corroboration of citizenship was adopted within the preparation of electoral rolls realizing full nicely that almost all Indians lack sufficient paperwork and certificates to ascertain their citizenship standing. It was additionally recognised that the poor are particularly disadvantaged of their entry to official documentation assets and subsequently want proactive measures to make sure their inclusion. This course of has now been reversed to make sure that these with poor entry to paperwork might be disadvantaged of their rights as voters.
4. The ECI has exempted electors included within the 2003 electoral roll from furnishing any doc below SIR 2025 apart from “the related extracts of the mentioned half displaying their identify within the 2003 electoral roll”. ECI’s affidavit states that the kids of electors included within the 2003 rolls have additionally been allowed to make use of this avenue to show their eligibility. Such privileging of the inclusions within the 2003 electoral rolls, over and above all electoral rolls printed by the ECI within the two subsequent many years, is untenable, unjust and discriminatory.
5. The SIR is claimed to be an train in pursuit of the duty entrusted to the ECI below the Structure, but what it’s successfully doing is to invert principle and follow to:
   • cross the burden for proving citizenship to the voter as a substitute of the authorities having to show why they’ve excluded somebody on the idea of faux citizenship;
   • arrogate to itself (the ECI) the authority (as a substitute of the Residence Ministry) to successfully confer or take away citizenship rights with none Constitutional mandate to take action;
   • introduce the contested concept of the NRC by means of the backdoor, because it had been, within the guise of cleansing up electoral rolls;
   • successfully negate and nullify the electoral rolls at present in use (as lately as within the 2024 Lok Sabha Elections) on the pretext that they’re prone to be contaminated and, thereby , justify the creation of a very new set of rolls;
   • disenfranchise tens of millions of those that have been registered voters in all elections held since 2003 however could not have paperwork that they’re now required to own;
   • prescribe a listing of paperwork by means of an arbitrary and eccentric government fiat making it just about unimaginable for most individuals to acquire them in time;
   • use the pretext of cleansing and purifying voter lists to eradicate and delete tens of millions of current voters who can’t fulfill arbitrary bureaucratic necessities, e.g. married girls having to provide delivery certificates and so on. of their mother and father;
   • give extraordinary discretionary powers to officialdom at varied ranges to bask in hire searching for to take away or add voters;
   • muddy waters sufficiently to make your complete course of mystifying, troublesome and opaque.
6. As if it was not sufficient to fee an SIR which was able to subverting the electoral course of within the garb of reforming it, the breakneck pace with which it has been applied, the unimaginable timelines given to the Sales space Degree Officers, the grossly insufficient infrastructure supplied/made obtainable to digitise the info has made a mockery of the very elaborate procedures the ECI has laid down .
7. In a number of reviews within the print and digital media, notably the YouTube movies of Ajit Anjum, a reputed journalist, it’s abundantly clear that fraud and forgery on an enormous scale has occurred. There may be video proof to point out that voter kinds have been stuffed up not by the voters however en masse by BLOs sitting in formally supplied area, and signatures of 1000’s of these voters solid in an organised method. Kinds and signatures of relations of a number of voters (together with types of useless members of their households) have been stuffed, signed and uploaded on the ECI web site with out their data and consent. When reviews appeared that nobody was being given the voter’s copy of the enrolment kind nor any acknowledgement receipts supplied, footage had been rapidly taken to point out village girls lining up and holding their copy of kinds as proof of acknowledgement. When the identical girls had been visited once more by the investigating reporter – Ajit Anjum – they confessed that the officers gave them the kinds, took the picture of them holding them up, printed them after which took again these kinds.
8. In a Jansunwai (public listening to) held in Patna on 21.06.2025 with eminent individuals like Wajahat Habibullah (former Chief Data Commissioner of India) and Justice Anjana Prakash (retired choose of the Patna Excessive Courtroom) amongst others because the Presidees, 25 individuals, together with a number of illiterate girls, from 14 villages described their experiences of what truly occurred throughout the SIR course of, and their detailed testimonies confirmed the extent of the fraud that’s being perpetrated within the identify of the SIR. This can be a surprising revelation of the best way the Election Fee is utilizing its powers, forcing the district equipment to resort to unethical practices in an organised method within the very first part of this elaborate charade. The proof of such fraud within the very first stage of the SIR train vitiates your complete SIR course of and undermines these very constitutional processes that the ECI claims to be following. It’s particularly reprehensible that this fraud is being dedicated below the direct supervision of the ECI, bringing this establishment of eminence with an excellent previous into grave disrepute. The continuation of this futile train and its proposed extension to the remainder of the nation, particularly when all that’s required is routine updation of current information within the common course of the ECI’s scheduled actions, poses one of many greatest threats Indian democracy has confronted, from the very establishment that’s meant to uphold the system of common suffrage.
9. As our varied petitions and pleas to the ECI in a number of issues regarding elections have been ignored and casually dismissed previously, we’re addressing this open letter to ‘We the individuals’ in order that public opinion is mobilised and there’s strain on the ECI to take corrective motion. We additionally hope that the Supreme Courtroom, which is analyzing the matter, takes heed of the problems raised by us, significantly as most of us, as members of the CCG, have had lengthy expertise of conducting and supervising elections, together with the preparation of Electoral Rolls, and are acquainted with the complexities of doing so in an unlimited democracy like ours.

Satyameva Jayate

Yours faithfully

Constitutional Conduct Group (93 signatories)

[Courtesy: National Herald and Constitutional Conduct Group.]