Citizenship not ECI’s job: Former Supreme Court judge Sudhanshu Dhulia

Justice (retd) Sudhanshu Dhulia was at the Idea Exchange. (Express photo by Renuka Puri)

Former Supreme Court judge Sudhanshu Dhulia has said that the apex court has laid down the law in several judgments on citizenship and it “is not the Election Commission of India’s job”.

Justice Dhulia, who retired from the Supreme Court in August 2025, also described as “a serious matter” the two Election Commissioners objecting on record 14 times in 10 months to steps taken by the Chief Election Commissioner, as reported by The Indian Express.

Responding to a question at the Idea Exchange Friday on his remark during an SIR hearing in July 2025 that “citizenship is an issue to be determined not by the Election Commission of India, but by the Ministry of Home Affairs”, Justice Dhulia said: “This is the law laid down by the Supreme Court in several earlier judgments: this is not the Election Commission of India’s job. But a voter has to be a citizen of this country. The problem is the enormous conditions that have been imposed. When I was hearing the matter, nobody had asked for a stay, so why give one? They were only asking for Aadhaar and voter cards to be accepted, so we said fine. That’s about all I did, which they agreed to.”

Asked about The Indian Express investigation on the objections raised by the Election Commissioners, Justice Dhulia said: “If the decisions of the Election Commission of India were taking place with only the Chief Election Commissioner, the way it has been presented by The Indian Express, then it becomes a serious matter. But we do not know, and it’s too early for anyone to say…”

Justice Dhulia was also asked a question related to another finding of The Indian Express investigation, on 97 voters in Goa not being brought back into the rolls despite the Chief Electoral Officer writing to the Election Commission and the Supreme Court earlier stating that everyone flagged as having a “logical discrepancy” should first be heard.

Justice Dhulia said: “Contempt of court is a deliberate and wilful disobedience of a court order. So, first of all, whether some order has been violated has to be proved, and whether that violation was deliberate and wilful also has to be proved. It’s quite possible that they may say, and I am playing the Devil’s Advocate here, ‘No, instructions were given, but some lower-level officers have not followed them’. Contempt of court is not an easy path to tread here.”

Justice Dhulia headed a vacation bench in July 2025 that declined to restrain the Election Commission from proceeding with the SIR of electoral rolls in poll-bound Bihar.

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The bench, which included Justice Joymalya Bagchi, also suggested to the poll panel to consider Aadhaar, voter ID and ration cards, too, for the purpose of updating the rolls. It was hearing petitions voicing concerns over the SIR in Bihar.

On Friday, the retired judge clarified that he was only the “vacation judge for a day or two”.

“There were two questions before me. Since the matter wasn’t being heard during the vacation, I said, bring it tomorrow. After hearing it, we passed an interim order regarding the Aadhaar card and other things. But the actual arguments did not take place before me. So this question is better asked to those before whom the full arguments took place and who then took the decision,” he said.