With the Election Commission of India (ECI) in the midst of a new phase of Special Intensive Review (SIR) across many states, following its pilot project in Bihar, the main charge leveled by the opposition against the ECI was that the electoral body was trying to “backdoor the NRC” – a reference to the National Register of Citizens (NRC), which was well prepared in some states.
In a press conference on 27 October 2025, the ECI clarified that the second phase of the state-wide SIR would not be extended to Assam, which is expected to go to polls next year. The Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) said that while Citizenship Act, 1955contains separate provisions for Assam, the Supreme Court of India-supervised citizenship inquiry is “finished”—a claim that needs to be contextualized and that raises a crucial question about the ECI’s jurisdiction.
The question of jurisdiction
It goes without saying that one of the key criticisms of the Bihar SIR was the ECI, which required proof of citizenship based on limited documents for anyone who was not on the electoral rolls in 2003. This is because the ECI’s own guidelines require anyone whose citizenship is found to be in doubt to be referred to the appropriate authority under the Citizenship Act.
However, in the Assam exception and its subtle explanation, the ECI swept under the rug the biggest doubts about its jurisdiction in ascertaining citizenship, as carrying out any such exercise in Assam would pose a new legal hurdle – a hurdle already prepared by the NRC in Assam under the constant watch of the Court, and ultimately a legal necessity to subject the exercise of citizenship powers to the state’s residents under yet another strict citizenship. disciple.
Why the CEC’s explanation that the Assam citizenship inquiry will be completed soon is a smokescreen because the NRC in Assam was already prepared under the supervision of the Supreme Court more than five years ago. On 31 August 2019, the Office of the State Coordinator, NRC, Assam issued a press release titled “Publication of final NRC on 31 August 2019“, announcing that the process of updating the NRC in Assam has come to an end. This was a watershed moment for Assam and India, making Assam the only post-independence state to conduct and conclude the exercise on such a large scale and under the supervision of the country’s highest court.
A total of 3.30 million people applied through 68.38 million applications, according to a press release from the state coordinator. After years of consideration and consultation with stakeholders, a careful legal architecture has been developed for the control and verification of citizenship documents. The gigantic exercise was carried out with the participation of nearly 52,000 civil servants and under the constant supervision and supervision of the court. The exercise ended with 3,11,21,004 people found eligible for inclusion in the final NRC, while 19,06,657 people were excluded. This massive exercise was done at a cost of over ₹1,600 crore.
If the NRC is allowed to run, as it constitutionally and legally should, the ECI must focus on its primary role of conducting free and fair elections and not assume the mantle of a parallel civil court. Assam already bears the burden of being the only state where full citizenship verification has been carried out under the supervision of the Supreme Court, and its people deserve to be spared another round of uncertainty and bureaucratic scrutiny. Anything less could erode the fragile social fabric and reduce confidence in India’s institutions.
Section 6A, unique regime for Assam
In the background of the NRC was a key issue that was central to the citizenship debate in Assam – Section 6A of the Citizenship Act, 1955. Introduced in 1985 as part of the Assam Accord, this provision created a separate legal regime of citizenship applicable only to Assam and prescribed cut-off dates for the detection and deportation of foreigners that differed from the rest of the country.
In October 2024, a five-member bench of the Supreme Court v In Re: Section 6A of the Citizenship Act 1955upheld the constitutional validity of Section 6A, reaffirmed the framework as a special provision for Assam and emphasized its compatibility with the preambular value of fraternity. This judgment reinforced the idea that Assam’s citizenship issue cannot be approached in the same way as other states and that its historical, political and legal uniqueness must be preserved and respected.
In perspective
Unlike other states, settled and unsettled legal issues regarding citizenship and migration have been unique in Assam for at least the last half-century. Judgment after judgment regarding the legal status of citizenship in Assam reinforces this uniqueness. Any attempt by the ECI to take the SIR in Assam along the same path as the citizenship inquiry, despite the special legal environment, would therefore require it to negotiate the curves carefully.
One may also argue that if NRC-Assam was already ready, what is stopping the ECI from using this data and completing the exercise in Assam reasonably earlier than other states?
Also notable is that in the NRC, Assam was not ready to meet the election deadline; was finalized after wide and inclusive consultations with all stakeholders in the state. Thus, the culmination of the NRC on August 31, 2019, went through a wide consultative process, which was monitored at every stage by a special bench of the Supreme Court. It would certainly be difficult for the ECI to ignore this exercise and the likelihood of people included in the NRC finding themselves excluded from the electoral rolls would put the ECI in an awkward position.
Fuzail Ahmad Ayyubi is an Advocate at the Supreme Court of India
Published – 07 Nov 2025 0:08 IST
