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.