The senior lawyer said the Election Commission has no jurisdiction to prevent a person from being on the roll or to knock him out of the roll.

"Citizenship is a constitutional imperative. Section 19 of ROPA is enacted on the bedrock of Article 325. An illegal immigrant residing here for long..suppose more than 10 years...So should they stay on the rolls? To say that citizenship is presumed when residence and age is satisfied will be incorrect. It is not dependent on residence or age since citizenship is a constitutional requirement," the bench said.

The manner in which the jurisdiction is being exercised by the poll panel must also conform to the constitutional imperatives of fairness and reasonableness, it said.

"When you say mass exclusion, when you say suspected foreigner status, when you say non-compliance with the rules under the statute, these do not really go into the fundamental constitutional power of superintendence. They relate to the way superintendence is being exercised," the bench said.

So when the court examines the poll panel's power of superintendence, can it be said that the superintendence extends to the core constitutional requirement for the right to vote, namely citizenship, it asked.

"If it does not, and you would definitely say it does not, that is one thing. But if it does, then we understand what you are saying, which is that under the statutory schemes of the Citizenship Act and the Foreigners Act, the Election Commission has no power to declare a person as a foreigner or a non-citizen. But, it can doubt the status and refer the issue to the appropriate authorities," the bench said.

The bench said the EC's power of superintendence under Article 324 must be exercised in line with constitutional norms of fairness and Article 14.

The bench will continue hearing the remaining petitioners on December 11.