Allahabad High Court Rejects PIL To Adopt ECI's 'SIR' Guidelines For UP Three-Tier Panchayat Roll Revision

The Allahabad High Court, on Wednesday, rejected a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) plea seeking the implementation of the Election Commission of India's (ECI) guidelines for 'Special Intensive Revision' (SIR) of Electoral Rolls for the upcoming Three-Tier Panchayat Elections in Uttar Pradesh.The Division Bench of Chief Justice Arun Bhansali and Justice Jaspreet Singh dismissed the plea filed by Narendra Kumar Tripathi, a resident of Sant Kabir Nagar, observing that the State Election Commission's process was already at an advanced stage. Briefly put, the petitioner had approached the High Court seeking a writ of Mandamus to direct the respondents, including the Election Commission of India and the State Election Commission, Uttar Pradesh, to ensure that the guidelines issued for the SIR of Electoral Rolls for Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha elections are also made applicable to the Three-Tier Panchayat Elections. The petitioner argued that since the ECI had already issued guidelines on June 24, 2025, for a Special Intensive Revision to clean up the electoral rolls, the State Election Commission should not have issued separate notifications (dated October 7, 2025 and November 18, 2025) for a distinct revision process for the Panchayat polls. The core contention was that running two separate revision processes constitutes a "double process" that wastes public time and the efforts of government servants. The petitioner argued that adopting a unified process based on the ECI's SIR guidelines would save resources and prevent duplication of work. The Court, however, refused to interfere with the ongoing process. The Bench noted that the State Election Commission's procedure for the revision of electoral rolls had commenced significantly earlier and now the provisional list was about to be published (December 23)In its order, the Bench held: "Seeking to question the SIR procedure adopted by the State Election Commission, there is absolutely no reason for this Court to interfere, wherein the procedure has started way back on 18.07.2025 and the provisional list is due to be published on 23.12.2025."Counsel for Petitioner(s): Anumesh Mishra, Awadhesh Kumar Tiwari, Mohd. Shahanshah Newaz Khan, Pankaj Kumar Mishra, Sanjai Kumar PandeyCounsel for Respondents: O.P. Srivastava (Sr. Adv.) with Anupriya Srivastava, Avinash Singh Vishen, Rakesh Kumar Chaudhary (Sr. Adv.) with Ayush ChaudharyCase Title: Narendra Kumar Tripathi v. Election Commission of India Nirvachan Sadan thru. Chairman and 3 others [PUBLIC INTEREST LITIGATION (PIL) No. - 1272 of 2025] Citation :Click Here To Read/Download Order

Allahabad High Court Rejects PIL To Adopt ECI's 'SIR' Guidelines For UP Three-Tier Panchayat Roll Revision

Upasna Agrawal

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