The two-and-a half-day hearing in the Supreme Court of 12–14 August 2025 led to an interim order on the special intensive revision (SIR) being conducted by the Election Commission of India on 14 August, Thursday.

The short and carefully worded order states that it was ‘agreed’ that the ECI would display the list of 65.2 lakh voters deleted from the electoral roll after the month-long SIR that concluded on 25 July. Not an ‘instruction’ or ‘order’ from the Supreme Court to the ECI, but a mild enough agreement’ between the two.

Surprisingly, the ECI had earlier categorically refused to release the list. It had argued that no rule requires it to release the list of the deceased and those who permanently shifted or those who are registered in more than one booth. It then argued in court that releasing such a list would affect the privacy of the voters.

It thereafter claimed that the list had already been shared with booth-level agents (BLAs) of political parties.

Then, for 45 minutes in the court on 14 August, the ECI’s counsel vehemently argued against releasing the list before ‘agreeing’ to the court’s suggestion.

Remarkably, it had earlier brushed aside the court’s suggestion that it should include Aadhaar as the 12^th document, in addition to the 11 documents it had specified for voters to establish that they are citizens. In its counter affidavit too, it had refused to accept Aadhaar as proof of citizenship, pointing out that Aadhaar was not conceived as proof of citizenship but merely as proof of residence.