We will look at it state-wise: Supreme Court in plea alleging large-scale voter deletions in Maharashtra SIR

A plea before the Supreme Court on Thursday alleged large-scale voter deletions from Maharashtra's electoral rolls during the Election Commission of India's (ECI) Special Intensive Revision (SIR).

A Bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi agreed to hear the matter on October 26.

Senior Advocate Arvind Datar, appearing in the case, told the Court that out of Maharashtra's 9.79 crore voters, 1.2 crore had been flagged for logical discrepancies. He also submitted that 40.6% of voters had been left out of the electoral rolls in Pune and certain other areas.

Datar requested that the matter be heard with the other SIR matters listed before the Court today.

However, CJI Kant replied,

"This cannot be generalised. We have to look at it state-wise. We have to concentrate on Maharashtra. Then we have to again move to the Delhi issues."

Datar urged the Court to issue notice on Thursday itself so that the authorities could provide information on the alleged discrepancies before the next hearing.

"If notice is issued today, by October 26 we can get some feedback on logical discrepancies. We don't even know what a logical discrepancy is. I leave it to the Court. Only some FAQ there," he submitted.

CJI Kant, however, declined to issue notice immediately.

"Not today. Not today," he said.

The hearing also comes amid concerns over the SIR exercise in Delhi. In a separate plea before the Supreme Court, RTI activist Anjali Bhardwaj and another petitioner have challenged the ECI's requirement that voters excluded from Delhi's draft electoral rolls apply afresh using Form 6 to restore their names.

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