Struck Off Without a Hearing: Why Mass Voter Deletion Is a Constitutional Question, Not an Administrative One

Article 326 Lists Who Can Be Kept Off the Roll and "Unverified" Is Not on the List Article 326

does two things in one sentence. It makes adult suffrage the basis of elections to the Lok Sabha and State Assemblies. It then says that every citizen aged 18 or above shall be entitled to be registered as a voter, unless disqualified on four named grounds: non-residence, unsoundness of mind, crime or corrupt or illegal practice.

That list of exceptions is the key to Justice Ujjal Bhuyan's argument at NALSAR and to the constitutional problem with mass deletion of voters.

The rule as written The framers did not leave franchise to Parliament's discretion.

In the draft Constitution these provisions were Articles 289A and 289B. Dr. B.R. Ambedkar insisted that the right to vote be written into the text itself rather than left to ordinary legislation. The reason was history. Under the Government of India Act, 1935, voting depended on property, taxation and literacy and only about 14% of the population qualified.

The Constituent Assembly rejected that model completely. Article 325 completes the design. It creates one general roll per constituency and forbids exclusion on grounds of religion, race, caste or sex. Together, the two Articles say that inclusion is the default and exclusion must be justified on a ground the Constitution itself names.

The rule as practised In practice, the right to vote has long been treated by courts as a statutory right, flowing from the Representation of the People Act, 1950, rather than as a fundamental right. The Supreme Court described it that way in Kuldip Nayar v. Union of India (2006). That classification matters because statutory rights can be regulated more freely. Justice Bhuyan's speech pushes back directly: he called the right to be a voter a constitutional right within the basic structure. The gap between the two readings becomes decisive at scale. Roll revision is necessary and legitimate, since dead, duplicate and shifted voters must be removed. But the Special Intensive Revision has reportedly removed about 13.3 crore names and former judge Rohinton Nariman flagged 90 lakh in West Bengal alone. When deletion happens at that scale, the practical burden shifts. Instead of the state proving that a person falls under one of Article 326's disqualifications, the citizen must prove they still belong. That reversal is what makes the exercise, in Justice Bhuyan's words, intrinsically arbitrary under Article 14. His proposed safeguard is narrow and precise: except for a dead voter, no name already on the roll should be deleted without notice and a hearing. The Supreme Court applied the same logic in Lal Babu Hussein (1995), where it held that people already on the roll could not be struck off as suspected non-citizens without a fair inquiry. A caution is needed: this was a speech at a moot court, not a judgment. It does not decide the pending challenge to the revision. It does, however, show how a sitting judge reads the constitutional text.

For the exam, the insight is this: the real question is not whether rolls may be cleaned, but who bears the burden of proof. Article 326 makes registration the citizen's entitlement, so the burden lies with the state.