E-Paper
SC tells ECI to provide final electoral roll of Bihar
The Supreme Court ordered the Election Commission of India to provide Bihar's updated electoral roll amid concerns over duplicates and transparency issues.
The Supreme Court on Thursday told the Election Commission of India (ECI) to provide the final revised electoral roll of Bihar after the petitioners challenging the special intensive revision (SIR) in the state raised concerns over irregularities by way of duplicate names still figuring in the revised rolls and questioned the lack of transparency in addition of nearly 21 lakh voters.
A bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant and justice Joymalya Bagchi said, “You (ECI) will have to provide us with the latest electoral roll of Bihar,” as the bench was informed that on October 9, a presentation made by one of the petitioners - political activist Yogendra Yadav showed 1.75 crore duplicate voters in the state voter rolls which remain unrectified and feature in the rolls even after SIR.
Advocate Prashant Bhushan appearing for non-profit organisation Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) said, “Shockingly, the corrections have not been made. These doubtful names still remain. The presentation by Yadav was made in court on October 9 and the revisions were carried out till October 17.”
Bhushan said ECI’s own guidelines mandate the use of de-duplication software despite which these discrepancies continue to exist on the rolls. He further pointed out that while 3.66 lakh voters were deleted from the rolls, show cause notices were issued to 26 lakh persons. “There has been a continuous lack of transparency on part of the ECI. We do not know who are these 3.66 lakh who are deleted and on what ground they were removed. Due to absence of a machine-readable format of the rolls, it is difficult to find any name on the rolls. These are serious issues the ECI must address,” Bhushan said.
He further raised concerns over the addition of 21.53 lakh new voters in the final list of 7.45 crore voters who were found eligible after SIR to vote in the recently-concluded Assembly elections in the state.
Senior advocate Kapil Sibal representing another petitioner told the court that nearly 52 lakh voters have been added to the voter rolls without any explanation. “The allegation was there are ghuspethis (illegal immigrants) in the state. This was the narrative that was built and now 52 lakh people have got added. We will be giving those details.”
The Election Commission represented by senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi said, “These are narratives being set by political parties.” The bench, however, told EC, “On the factual arguments made so far, you need to respond.”
Senior advocate Shoeb Alam who appeared for a former Bihar legislator pointed out that SIR is an extraordinary step to be undertaken by the ECI giving reasons and the current reasons are not sufficient for the election panel to deviate from the statutory scheme which provides measures for updating the rolls.
As other petitioners still remained to argue, the court posted the matter for further hearing on December 9.
The commission had argued that under section 21(3) of the Representation of Peoples Act, 1950, it has power to conduct a SIR. Bihar was the first state chosen by the commission for a state-wide SIR giving reasons that due to rapid urbanisation, frequent migrants, young voters becoming eligible to vote, non-reporting of deaths and inclusion of illegal immigrants, such an intensive revision is mandatory.
Since then, the commission is now undertaking a similar exercise in 13 states and union territories. The SIR in some of these states/UTs such as Kerala, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh and Puducherry is pending consideration in the top court.
