Kochi: The Kerala High Court on Thursday reserved its order on the State government's plea to postpone the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in the State, ahead of local body elections. During the hearing, Justice VG Arun opined that the state should approach the Supreme Court, where similar matters are pending.

"I am not saying that there is no power of judicial review vested with this Court. I'm only saying that as the matter is under consideration before the Supreme Court, it will be appropriate for this Court, or rather inappropriate for this Court to go into the question as to whether the revision can go on or there should be a deferment of the SIR revision process...The other option is, abide by what the Supreme Court has said and defer the writ proceedings, which will also be of no benefit because the Supreme Court says we request jurisdictional High Courts to keep in abeyance/defer the writ proceedings...Ultimately, if an order is passed, that will hamper the process, which definitely...this is also a time-bound process and the validity of which is being considered,” said the judge. 

The court will pronounce its final verdict on the writ petition on Friday. 

Responding to the court’s query on why the government had not approached the Supreme Court, Advocate General Gopalakrishna Kurup, appearing for the state, informed the court that the State Election Commission had already initiated the SIR procedures. The local body polls are scheduled to be held in two phases — on December 9 and 11 — while the counting of votes will take place on December 13.

The state cited the workload of government officials while implementing two constitutional exercises. The Advocate General also expressed concern that deploying a large number of officers for the SIR process during the election period could affect the administration.

However, Senior Advocate Rakesh Dwivedi appearing for the Election Commission of India however opposed the State's plea, contending that more than half of the exercise (SIR) is already over and any intervention at this stage would be restraining the process in the middle of the exercise. He argued that the SIR implementation had been announced earlier and that the state was given a five-month window to complete it. He added that suspending the process now could create major hurdles, as the Assembly elections are expected in March or April.

“About 1,76,000 officers of the state are required to be deployed for conducting the local body elections, and another 68,000 personnel are needed for security arrangements. Notifications have already been issued, and the process is to be completed by December 20,” the Advocate General told the court.

He further pointed out that a minimum of 26,000 officers would be required to carry out the SIR process during the same period.

When the Court orally pointed that SIR is also a time-bound process and Kerala is lagging compared to the other states, the AG responded that at present, there is no emergency to have it before December 20 also. 

 "Wholly unfounded because the election commissions are interacting, co-ordinating with the officers...we have decided to conduct both the exercises in a harmonious manner...There are two options. One is to shut out the exercise or to coordinate and conduct both harmoniously...we are all working under strain, judiciary works under strain...the best course to conduct both harmoniously so as not to hinder the other...We have contacted the collectors also. They have not mentioned anything...we have to manage both,” said the counsel for the ECI

Dwivedi further claimed that there is hardly any overlap of 4-5 days between the local elections and the SIR.

As per the ECI schedule, preparation and training for SIR commenced back in October, and presently, the enumeration period is going on. The rationalisation of polling stations will be done on December 4, and the draft roll will be prepared between December 5 and 8.

According to the ECI, the draft electoral roll will be published on December 9 (also the first phase of local elections) and the window for filing objections will be open from the said date till January 8, 2026. Final electoral roll after SIR will be published on February 7, 2026.

(With Live Law inputs)