Bihar Electoral Roll Revision case: LIVE UPDATES from Supreme Court

The Supreme Court is hearing a batch of petitions challenging the Election Commission of India’s June 24 directive for a Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar.

A Bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi is hearing the matter.

The petitioners have raised concerns that the SIR process permits arbitrary deletion of voters without adequate safeguards, potentially disenfranchising lakhs of citizens and undermining free and fair elections.

The Election Commission has defended its directive, asserting that it is empowered to undertake such an exercise and that the revision is crucial to ensure that only eligible citizens are included in the electoral rolls ahead of the upcoming Bihar Assembly elections.

One of the issues that the Court is considering has been the list of documents that may be accepted by the Election Commission to verify the identity of voters to retain their names in the electoral list.

On July 10, the top court had urged the Election Commission to consider Aadhaar, ration card and electoral photo identity card (EPIC card) as admissible documents for this verification exercise.

The Commission, however, later submitted an affidavit stating that neither Aadhaar cards nor ration cards can be treated as proof of eligibility to vote.

The petitioners have challenged the exclusion of these documents as absurd.

More recently, the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), which is a petitioner, filed an interim application urging the Court to direct the ECI to disclose details of 65 lakh names dropped from a draft Bihar electoral roll published on August 1 as part of the SIR.

On August 14, the Court asked the ECI to upload online this list of 65 lakh voters proposed to be deleted from the electoral roll and disclose reasons for such proposed deletion.

On August 22, the Court added that people excluded from the draft electoral roll can submit Aadhaar card along with the requisite form to object to their exclusion.

Live updates from the hearing today feature here.

Advocate Prashant Bhushan: There are several issues. Some applications filed on Saturday could not be listed. One issue is regarding extension of time for filing… the second is to publicise the orders, inform the electors, etc. The third is not to delete the entry if the elector has an Aadhar card. The last order said that when claims and objections are filed, Aadhar will be filed.

Justice Surya Kant: Aadhar will be taken as one of the documents for verification…

Bhushan: it’s essential to clarify that Aadhar…. They have not even uploaded the forms as received from the voters. Unless I can see what forms are received….

Justice Kant: We have to be clear about Section 9 of the Aadhar card. Whatever value has been attached to the Aadhar card has to be acknowledged.

Bhushan: They have not given the voters what they have received from them. Unless I know that…. They didn’t accept Aadhar in the first stage.

Bhushan: Suppose I have not attached any documents. They are saying anybody who has submitted the form is on the draft list. Our assertion is many of those forms are not filled by the voters themselves.

Senior Advocate Rakesh Dwivedi (for ECI): We will give a notice within 7 days if there is a discrepancy in the documents. 99.5% of 7.24 crore have submitted documents. Most of the political parties are filing applications only for deletion and not for inclusion.

Bhushan: They are not even following their own manual.

Justice Kant: Whatever provision is laid down is a commitment by the ECI. That has to be followed. Point 11 of their manual lays down a procedure for claims and objections. They are not following that.

Dwivedi: Everybody has submitted documents. I don’t know for whom they are arguing.

Justice Kant: Suppose you are able to verify 1,000 voters today. And suppose in 100 you find there are discrepancies. Will you wait till 25th September to disclose that?

Dwivedi: No, that will take 7 days. It’s an ongoing process. Only 10 claims have been submitted by RJD from their BLAs. No one has been excluded. Their only concern is why is it not shown in the name of RJD. CPIM had submitted 103 claims for inclusion and 15 claims for exclusion. The overwhelming submissions are for exclusion.

Justice Kant: What ground are they seeking for the deletion of voters?

Dwivedi: Mostly on the ground that they are dead, etc. In many cases, electors themselves are coming forward to say their name is included somewhere else and request to delete it.

Dwivedi reads from his note: 2.7 lakh are deletions. A maximum time of 30 days has been provided for claiming objection. BLAs were also given the ASD list. The filing of claims, objections, or corrections is not barred after 1st September. They will be considered after the electoral role has been finalised. All inclusions and exclusions will be integrated into the final roll.

Dwivedi: They can keep on filing after 30th September. They will all be considered. But today to postpone the dates… then we will have to keep on postponing all the dates, and it will be an unending exercise.

Bhushan: They are saying that these people who apply after 1st September, their names will not be reflected in the roll created on 30th September, but it may be corrected…. When we are asking for an extension of time, it is an extension of some time, maybe till the 10th. The order requesting the publication of the list with reasons was uploaded on August 17th. Then the Aadhar inclusion order came. Now there are also floods in Bihar. They are not following their own manual for transparency. I don’t know what is there in my form.

Bhushan: they are doing they will do everything on 30th September and publish it on 1st October. Their objections are in standard format.

Justice Kant: What is bothering us is that despite all our directions, they are coming only with 100-120 names?

Bhushan: They are asking everybody whose name is not in the roll to fill out Form 6. Which includes a declaration that their names were not there in any of the previous voter lists.

Dwivedi: People don’t have a problem. Only ADR has a problem. They are all filling form 6.

Advocate Nizam Pasha: They are refusing to accept a form for inclusion/exclusion and only accepting form 6, which talks about fresh inclusion. When the documents are filed, let it be reflected online. They are changing it.

Dwivedi: This is all misleading. We are giving the new forms. Every week it is being provided to the political parties also.

Justice Kant: Let the matter be taken up in the presence of political parties, then.

Justice Kant: We can ask district legal services authorities to deploy para-legal volunteers to help fill out the forms.

Senior Advocate Shoeb Alam (for RJD): For the first time on August 22, your lordships said Aadhar.

Justice Kant: Parties are asking for exclusion.

Alam: They are saying that 36 claims from BLAs filed by RJD are misleading. Please see my IA. On affidavit. They are saying I only have 10 claims.

Justice Kant: is it more than 36?

Alam: yes.

Justice Kant: but your own IA says 36.

Bhushan: the problem really is in the lack of transparency.

Dwivedi: problem is in the mindset. Which is to disrupt.

Order: The IAs are seeking interim directions, including for the extension of the timeline for filing claims by 2 weeks. In response to the content of the IAs, Dwivedi has handed over a note in which the contents of each IA and the response of the commission are mentioned. Regarding the extension of time for filing claims and objections, the note states that the filing of claims is not barred after September 1st. It is stated that the claims/objections can be submitted even after the deadline of 1st September, and the same will be considered after the roll has been finalised. The process of considering claims will continue until the last date of nominations. Let the claims/objections be continued to be filed. Meanwhile the political parties may submit their response to the note submitted.

Order: We also find that there are seriously disputed questions of fact with regard to the submission on acceptance of the claims/objections. With a view to facilitating the voters, who are the central issue in these proceedings, we request the Deputy Chairman of the Bihar State Legal Services Authority to issue instructions, preferably by tomorrow before noon, to depute or notify para-legal volunteers. They will assist the voters/political parties in the online submission of claims/objections/corrections. Each PLV will then submit a confidential report to the chairman of the DLSA. This information so collected from the PLV may be collated at the level of SLSA for further consideration.