The Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed with the Election Commission of India (ECI) that Aadhaar cards cannot be considered as final proof of citizenship. The court said that the information in Aadhaar must be checked and verified separately. A panel of judges, led by Justice Surya Kant, made these comments while hearing petitions against the Special Summary Revision (SIR) of voter lists in Bihar.

Justice Kant told lawyer Kapil Sibal, who was representing the petitioners, that the Election Commission was right to say Aadhaar alone is not enough to prove citizenship. He added that the first thing to decide is whether the Election Commission has the authority to do this verification. If it doesn’t, then nothing can move forward.

Sibal argued that the Commission’s process could remove many valid voters from the list, especially those who cannot submit the required forms. He said even voters on the 2003 lists had to fill out new forms, and if they didn’t, their names would be deleted even if they had not moved. 

According to him, although over 7 crore people submitted forms, about 65 lakh names were removed without proper checking for death or migration. He said the Election Commission admitted it did not conduct any survey to verify these removals.

The court asked how this number of 65 lakh was decided and whether these fears were based on facts or just guesses. The judges said they wanted to know if the worries were real or imaginary, noting that those who submitted forms were still on the draft voter lists.

Sibal also said that in the 2025 voter list, there were 7.9 crore voters, with 4.9 crore from the 2003 list, and that 22 lakh voters were marked as dead. Another lawyer, Prashant Bhushan, said the Election Commission had not shared the list of voters removed due to death or moving away, either in court papers or on their website.

He said the Commission told booth-level agents about these names but refused to share this information with others. The court said that if a voter gave a form with Aadhaar and ration card, the Commission must check the details. The judges also asked if voters who were missing documents were properly informed about it.