Kerala’s plea to extend SIR enumeration ‘just and fair’: SC
POLITY – ELECTIONS
3 DECEMBER 2025
- The Supreme Court found the concerted pleas of the Kerala government, political parties, and public representatives to extend the enumeration phase of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in the State by at least a week beyond December 13 entirely “just and fair”, and worthy of “due consideration” by the Election Commission.
- A Bench headed by the Chief Justice of India Surya Kant directed Kerala to make a representation, if not already made, with the EC, detailing its reasons for seeking an extension.
- Kerala is on the cusp of elections to its 1,200 local self-government institutions made up of 941 gram panchayats, 152 block panchayats, 14 district panchayats, 87 municipalities, and six corporations. There are a total of 23,612 wards heading for polls in the State.
- The EC had recently extended the deadline for completing the enumeration stage from December 4 to December 11 amid reports of Booth-Level Officers wilting under the “overwhelming pressure” of work, with some even losing their lives.
- The Kerala government, along with its regional parties, besides the ruling party of Tamil Nadu and leaders from West Bengal, has separately challenged the very Constitutionality of the SIR in the apex court.
- But Kerala’s problem is more immediate. The State government said it was heading towards an “administrative impasse” with the SIR and the local body polls occurring simultaneously.
- The State was staring at a crisis with hardly any personnel left to do the day-to-day government functioning.
- The State said the elections would require deployment of 1,76,000 personnel from government and quasi-governmental services for election-related duties, and a further 68,000 police and other security personnel.
- It said the SIR also would need 25,668 persons from a pool of trained staff experienced with election-related work.
- The EC, represented by senior advocates Rakesh Dwivedi and Maninder Singh, said the enumeration phase was going “smoothly”, with 98.8% forms distributed to electors, and over 84% filled forms received back and digitised to date.
- They submitted that the SIR was not impeding the civic elections.
- The Kerala State Election Commission, represented by advocate Ramesh Babu, submitted that the staff deployed for SIR work were not being forced to double up as local body election officers.
