The Supreme Court's handling of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise challenge reveals concerns about judicial evasion and its impact on electoral processes and institutional legitimacy.What is SIR especially when Mamata Banerjee the Chief Minister of West Bengal appeared before the Supreme Court as an advocate she argued against that SAR SIR which means the special intensive revision exercise that has been done by the election commission last week the Supreme Court reserved judgment in the legal challenge to the ongoing SIR exercise it is worth mentioning that how the challenges against the SAR instituted in July 2025 took seven months to conclude and effectively it has sanctified the Bihar election result despite the voter rules in the state being revised in a questionable manner I mean in a legally questionable manner the reason for delay differ from the Supreme Court's now well recognized strategy of judicial evasion where the court simply refuse to hear constitutional challenges inconvenient to the government so in noted blogger and noted constitutional jurist Gautam Bhatia used the term judicial evasion I agree with him in recent time we have seen that when important matter of great constitutional importance reach the Supreme Court in recent time especially after the retirement of D Y Chandrachur or maybe Sanjeev Khanna we have seen that the matter is delayed by Supreme Court so that government would not feel any embarrassment for example the challenge to the appointment of Chief Election Commissioner and Election Commissioner so this matter is still pending before the Supreme Court try to remember what happened when Justice KM Joseph of course he has retired delivered a fine judgment where he rightly held that a committee should be constituted of Prime Minister Leader of the opposition and the Chief Justice of India to nominate the person to be appointed as the Chief Election Commissioner or Election Commissioner but what happened we all saw we all have seen the Parliament enacted a law the name of Chief Justice of India was deleted instead one cabinet minister's name was included and that was challenged but matter is still pending before the Supreme Court that's why I am using that term judicial evasion even a present Chief Justice of India Suryakando is infamous for it the SAR case was regularly heard often multiple times a week but Supreme Court reserved the judgment we all know that there are two types of judicial review that the courts of India engage the first type is I mean the judicial review what you already know basically the courts determines the lawfulness of legislative or executive action or the court determines the constitutionality of an executive or legislative action so we can call it legality review the grounds of this review is simple that is ultra virus violates the law the constitution there are several doctrines like the doctrine of proportionality reasonableness etc and through which the court test the state action but there is another review of course you have not heard that term that is dialogic review again I am repeating dialogic D I A L O G I C dialogic review where the court scrutinize government action with a view to facilitate open dialogue between government courts and state holders this review I mean through exercising this review the courts typically require the government to disclose its informational basis and methodological rational for taking action this has the effect of subjecting the government decision making to both public judgment and judicial scrutiny the consequence of this review are not invalidation unlike the conventional review but it increase transparency and accountability in July 2025 Election Commission of India issued SAR notifications which were challenged the petitions invoke several grounds of review but the main point was whether the election commission's actions were ultra virus of the representation of people act 1950 section 21 clause 3 grants the election commission a power to conduct special revision of voter rules for any constituency or any part of the constituency in such manner as it thinks fit and reasons are to be recorded so against this language the election commission of India exercise raised several questions first does the language allow special revision for all constituencies in a state and indeed the whole country second did the ECI records its reasons are they adequate third the most important question is that do the words in such a manner as it thinks fit grant the ECI the power to regulate its own procedure when carrying out special revision the ECI argued that when conducting a special revision under the law I mean the representation of people act it is not bound either by act or the registration of electoral rules 1960 and the commission is free to dictate its own procedure based on its overreaching power of superintendence of elections found in article 324 of the constitution while the date petition demanded the court to conduct legality review and invalidate SAR notification however the petitions also raised several practical concerns regarding the implementation of SAR in Bihar referring to the size of administrative exercise to be conducted prior to the Bihar election we all know that the state bureaucracy is involved of course at that time bureaucracy is controlled by the election commission not by the government in its first order on July 10 2025 the court the Supreme Court of India acknowledge that the petitions raise serious questions concerning the power of the election commission to conduct the SIR at this hearing the petitioner did not press for injunction or stay on the SIR because the net next date of hearing was July 28 however on July 28 the court expressly declined to injunct the SAR exercise instead requesting the council for a timeline for oral arguments so that were part of court proceeding means on 15th September when the SAR process now a foot in other states the petitioner retorted the need for court to hear and decide legality of the chart that means the SAR process was against the law in response the court stated that the court direction concerning the conduct of SAR would apply to other states on October 9 the court directed that Bihar legal service committee be mobilized to assist individual excluded from the rules we know in Bihar several thousand names were deleted or removed a preliminary point to observe is the neither on 10 or 28 July prior to the publication of the draft rules in Bihar did the court hear structured argument for injuncting the SAR nor did its order reflect any reasoning as to why injunction should not be granted there are well established legal test for when an injunction should be granted and despite these acts themselves granting substantial discretion to the judges the court simply refused to engage with this legal standard result is that we do not know the reasons why the recent UGC guidelines warrant a stay but SAR does not so recently we have seen that UGC regulations were stayed but not the SAR the sequencing of judicial review may appear at first glance to be lawyerly nitpicking however the court's approach has far reaching consequences first as the Bihar elections are over any question regarding the legality of the SAR in Bihar have been rendered infractuous by the court approach second using the lens of legal realism we can see how the court approach has created a significant institutional incentive to not invalidate the SAR this is because the court were to strike down the SAR if the court were to strike down the SAR it cannot reverse Bihar election but it would fundamentally undermine their legitimacy in the eyes of the people this would harm both the institutional legitimacy of the court and Indian democracy more broadly without predicting how the court may rule so we cannot predict we can simply note that ordering of judicial review has adversely affected the petitioner given the propensity of the Indian courts to throw themselves head first into complex social problem where the demands of both legality and dialogic review exist simultaneously the chart challenge could prompt greater focus on how courts can address the demands of both in principle and practical manner the election commission strategy during the chart challenge was clearly to extend proceedings and the court was complicit in this endeavor but though it should not be put into how future challenges can force the court hands the bar should also not allow its propensity for lengthy oral arguments to be used as an excuse where the courts to conclude that there is insufficient time to hear challenges that is not good

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