Bihar SIR case in Supreme Court: LIVE UPDATES

The Supreme Court is hearing a batch of petitions challenging the Election Commission of India’s (ECI) 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 ECI 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.

During the previous hearing of the matter, the Court had asked the Election Commission to furnish details of 3.7 lakh voters whose names were deleted after the SIR exercise.

Further, it had also taken note of the petitioners' argument that while 21 lakh voters were added to the final voters' list after around 65 lakh were deleted from the initial draft list, it was not clear whether the ones added back were the ones initially removed or whether they were new names. 

"There was a 65 lakh deletion which you (Election Commission of India) have published. We said that whoever is dead or moved already but we said if you have deleted someone please put up their data in your district electoral offices. Now from the draft you have got the final list. Final list appears to be an appreciation of numbers. It has gone up from 65. Now there is a confusion. What is the identity of this add on. Is it an add on of the deleted names or add on of independent new names," the Court asked.

It said that everyone has a right to appeal against their exclusion from the voters' list, adding that the Court cannot devise a solution to address arbitrary exclusions from the list if it is kept in the dark about the names which have been deleted without communication to the affected voters.

Live updates from the hearing today feature here.

Hearing begins. All other remaining cases left on board adjourned.

Senior Advocate Rakesh Dwivedi, appearing for Election Commission: Here was an argument that there were large number of people who were there on draft rolls and names suddenly went away from the list. I have received three affidavits now...we have enquired into this...this affidavit is completely false. Please see para 1: He says I am resident of Bihar and was there on draft voter list. He was not there. He did not submit voter enumeration form. This is false. Then he gives EPIC number...This polling booth given is 52 but actual is 653...But that name is also of lady and not him...he was not in draft roll.

Dwivedi: There is some lady who is there in draft and final list also. Then affidavit says annexures attached. No such annexures. Then there is a stamp paper...the date is of Sep 8...that is the date when SC ordered that State legal service authority member shall aid and assist. See name of applicant also...looks like notary selling this paper again and again.

Dwivedi: we were directed to publish the names which were excluded...booth wise. We have put it up everywhere...he was fully aware then. BLoS , Blas, political parties etc all there

Justice Surya Kant: Now there is a doubt whether such person exists or not at all.

Dwivedi: Mr Bhushan's affidavit has dropped the story of large number of people dropped. Now they say 130 dropped and they say some are who wanted to get enrolled for first time etc...if they have grievance, they can still file appeal within 5 days.

Dwivedi: These political parties just want to set narrative and no help...now they have analysed these many muslims excluded etc. We are praying for an order where people can file an appeal in 5 days as the door will be closed then.

Justice Kant: We just want to help those who are not included.

Senior Advocate Vijay Hansaria: If such an organisation is placing such things before the Court where it is not in existence, then they should not be heard.

Dwivedi: This is perjury!

Justice Bagchi: This document was handed over yesterday.

Bhushan: The legal services authority can enquire and check but that should not...

Justice Bagchi: This is a responsibility when you hand over documents to the Bench.

Bhushan: It was given to me by a responsible person...if ECI says there is some problem, the LSA can enquire as name and address given but that should not mean we will not be heard

Court: It is demonstrated that the facts are incorrect.

Justice Kant: This person was not found residing here at all.

Justice Kant: The LSA will willingly help...no need of directions...there are 20 other affidavits.

Justice Bagchi: With experience of this affidavit, how do we know all 20 other is also correct ?

Bhushan: These are oral assertions.

Justice Bagchi: Everything is oral. You should have seen if Mohd Shahid's name was indeed there in draft roll or not.

Justice Kant: Why can't all the people approaching you approach the LSA? Free legal counsels can also be provided.

Bhushan: They say either our name was excluded from draft roll...then Form 6 was filled and even then name was not in final roll...and others say their names stand excluded and they never got notice

Justice Kant: That is why appeal is the way out.

Justice Kant: We can direct Secretary of DLSA to look into this...see nothing wrong in giving affidavits...others can also...but we also need to give ECI time to verify this.

Bhushan: We want to show the massive deviation from their own SIR process which they did in 2003. No one was required to fill enumeration form. Earlier list was supposed to be treated as base list. Booth level officers had to go house to house, meet head of family. Ascertain who lives and include..

Justice Kant: But with technological advancement, let us not follow the 2003 process in 2025.

Bhushan: Let us show deviation from guidelines followed by ECI itself...There is no transparency at all. They have everything in computerised form. But still no data on who are excluded from draft list and thus we are spending 100s of hours going through everything and find it out.

ECI: Let us file a response

Adv Vrinda Grover: As per Section 23(3), rolls will freeze on October 17 which is 9 days from now. Why the scheme should tell me till when I can file appeal...

Justice Bagchi: An appeal can be just by saying my name deleted and no grounds communicated and first ground is breach of natural justice. Do we have details of even one appeal filed? We are seeing too much of passion and little of reason!

Justice Kant: A person must know why they are excluded.

Grover: We also need to scrutinise the info that we are receiving...

Justice Kant: Yes creates burden on you all also.. some info is partly correct and some partly incorrect. Some may be false also.

Bhushan: ECI used to give the final electoral roll in 6 formats earlier. Technology has increased and capacity of ECI to use it has also increased. Now when 3.6 lakh are excluded...that list of excluded is also not given. Why is the ECI shying away from giving the list in a machine readable format? What is the angle of privacy here? Everyone wants a clean voter list. The list should be analysable. That can only happen if it's machine readable.

[ORDER] Justice Kant: Regardless of outcome of these proceedings, one issue that has arisen is right to appeal for the 3.7 lakh who have been excluded. Though ECI has taken a stand that each such person why they have been excluded. petitioners oppose this. Since time to file appeal is running out, we request the executive chairman of Bihar legal services authority to send a communication to all the secretaries in local authorities to provide free legal aid counsel, para legal volunteers to help the excluded ones to file their appeals.

Let each village have a list of Booth Level Officer (BLO) and the numbers of the para legal volunteers who will help in filing these appeals. The officers shall also provide facilities to draft the appeals and counsel from the panel to file such appeals.

State legal service authority shall collate all info and submit status report to Court within one week and question of deciding appeals within the timeline shall be considered on the next date of hearing. These directions to state legal services authority shall be applicable mutatis mutandis and shall also be applicable to the ones excluded from the draft voter list.

Yogendra Yadav: Voters list needs improvement and no one says ECI cannot do it and plus they have a duty to do it. It is the nature of revision in question. This special intensive revision has weaponised a benign process. First weapon is systemic exclusion. Then comes structural exclusion and then possibility of targeted exclusion. To my mind, all over the world, voters lists are judged on completeness, accuracy and equity.

Yadav: On all these three counts, we have a very serious problem. Now we are on completeness part of it. SIR has led to largest every shrinkage of electoral roll. 47 lakh is the shrinkage that has happened. In the history, never. See the adult population of Bihar. These are estimates by the expert group of the Central government. In September 2025, it was 8 crore 22 lakh. When SIR began, roll was 7.89 lakh.

Justice Bagchi: Difference between electoral population and adult population with reference to 2014 and 2015 elections has swollen...thus SIR was really needed...you see depressing SSRs coming from 2020 onwards...105% is a crisis.

Yadav: Yes that is correct. Problem was cured after that. Here the issue is patient is cured and then medication is given. If you see, problem was cured in 2023.

Yadav: About 20 percent of the forms were filled by the BLOs. If this was not done...the number of exclusion would have been 2 crore and not 65 lakh. But this solution may not lie in other states.

Justice Bagchi: Aversion to the electoral process is by the more well off. The ones at the grassroots are much more enthusiastic to vote.

Yadav: Yes as we go down the social hierarchy...the voter turnout increases.

Yadav: ECI did something great this time...they told their officers agar mataji pitaji nahi mil rahe toh chacha nana tau ko mile daal do...will they follow this in other states also? Merely 40 percent of electorate did not file any of the 11 documents and it was only vanshavali route that they got onto the rolls.

Dwivedi: What is all this ? Is it on affidavit? This is not a lecture room!

Yadav: Let them say on affidavit whether they used vanshavali or not...

Yadav: Gains of 10 years in gender ratio was wiped out in Bihar SIR. Earlier. the number of women gap in electoral roll used to be 20 lakh and that became 7 lakh in Jan this year. SIR made it 16 lakh again and I hope this does not happen across the country and wherever SIR goes, it will happen to women.

Yadav: 45,000 of gibberish names are there...there are house numbers with number as zero and about 4,21,000 such houses. Then some details in Tamil and Kannada. This is what I mean by gibberish. This is the roll on which elections will be held. Then I will come to duplication. Strict test shows 5.2 lakh names are duplicate names. In draft list, it was 4.90 lakh such names. We thought ECI will do corrections but now 30,000 more names have been added. Does ECI have a deduplication software at all ?

Yadav: Then it shows 21 lakh such households with bulk voters which means each home with 10 such members who can vote. Now home with 100 or such members. There are 4 lakh such homes. Then there is a house number 6 which has 800 plus members. But even now, 880 people still live in this house. I am only telling you about 10 such homes. ECI has also added 21 lakh names even when SIR did not allow it. New voters should be 18 to 19. But here less than 20 percent of that age. 40 percent is of that bracket who are above 25 and there are 100 who are 100 years old and there are some who are 124 years old as per the final voter list.

Yadav: Out of 2.42 lakh who filed objections to someone's name...Then let us come to objections on citizenship...it says 700 people filed applications against themselves saying please come to my home, I am a foreigner!

Yadav : I would welcome such SIR across the country if the three such toxic elements are removed.

Dwivedi: In 1980s, I had spent time in Allahabad among the tribals. I had left my practice and had worked there and had gone to jail also pursuant to such demands. There were more than 3,000 tribals living on the land of Raja shankargarh and how to enroll them...That is why ECI entrusts such numbers. The submissions by Mr Yadav decry the poorest of the poor in the country.

Justice Kant: Yes, yes I know..

Bhushan: They basically want this to become fait accompli. Please hear it on Tuesday.

Dwivedi: We need some time.

Bhushan: Then the whole thing becomes a fait accompli.

Dwivedi: It is a fait accompli!