Bihar SIR: Supreme Court seeks ECI reply on deletion of 65 lakh names from electoral roll

A plea has been moved before the Supreme Court seeking directions to the Election Commission of India (ECI) to disclose details of 65 lakh names recently dropped from a Bihar electoral roll published on August 1, as part of an ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. .The matter was mentioned this morning before a Bench of Justices Surya Kant, Ujjal Bhuyan and NK Singh by Advocate Prashant Bhushan on behalf of Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR). The Court has sought the ECI's response in the matter. ."Draft roll says 65 lakh names have been omitted. But no list of those 65 lakh names given, and it says 32 lakh migrated, and no other details. They should disclose, who are 65 lakh? Who have migrated and who are dead? Apparently, the BLOs have recommended that person be removed or not be removed...they have published that for two constituencies...but what about other areas? We seek disclosure in these two IAs," argued Bhushan today.Justice Kant noted that according to a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) followed by the ECI, representatives of each political party will be given this information. The ECI, in turn, said that it will demonstrate that such information has been shared with representatives of political parties. The Court asked the ECI to place on record a reply on these aspects. "Give a list of political parties who were supplied with it. We will hear the case on August 12. File your (ECI) reply by then," Justice Kant told the ECI's counsel. .Bhushan went on to add,"The majority of those whose forms have been received has not given any of these forms.""We will see that every voter likely to be affected gets the required information," Justice Kant replied. Addressing the ECI's counsel, the Court added,"File a reply by Saturday and let Mr. Bhushan look at it. Then we can see what is disclosed and what is not disclosed.".In its application, ADR recounted that on July 25, the ECI issued a press release stating that approximately 65 lakh voters were deleted from the electoral roll. The ECI said that this was done after Booth Level Officers (BLOs) and Booth Level Agents (BLAs) reported that 22 lakh persons on the previous list were deceased, 7 lakh voters had registered in multiple locations and approximately 35 lakh voters had either migrated or could not be traced. The press release added that the enumeration forms of 1.2 lakh voters were yet to be received. Thereafter, on August 1, the ECI published a draft electoral roll, along with a list of approximately 65 lakh voters whose names were deleted. This list was sent to the BLAs of a few political parties. However, ADR says that this list failed to disclose the reasons for the deletion of the 65 lakh voters' names from the draft electoral list of August 1. "It fails to provide any explanation as to why these names were not included in the Draft Electoral Rolls; whether for reason of having been deceased, permanently migrated out of Bihar, being untraceable or on the ground of duplicate entry," the plea said. .ADR has contended that the provision of these details is necessary to cross-check and verify that the voters referred to are deceased, have migrated, are untraceable or have registered to vote in multiple locations, as claimed by the ECI. It is not enough to share a list of the names to some political parties alone, as it is not possible to carry out an on-ground verification exercise with just such a step, ADR added."It is to be noted that as per the Election Commission, those whose names do not figure in the draft roll stand do not enjoy the right to routine legal remedies (notice, personal hearing and appeals) available under Section 21A of the Registration of Voters Rules. They do not have the option of participating in the process of claims and objections and thus are at the biggest risk of disenfranchisement," the organisation argued. ADR has also submitted that in the current format of the draft electoral roll, the ECI has done away with an earlier practice of publishing the list of deleted electors. The number of deletions or additions in the electoral roll is also not being provided, the plea said. Further, it is noted that in at least two districts - Darbhanga and Kaimur - BLOs have "not recommended" a large number of voters for inclusion in the electoral roll, even though their enumeration forms were uploaded. .ADR has, therefore, urged the Court to:1. Direct ECI to publish a full and final assembly constituency and part/booth wise list of names and details of approximately 65 lakh electors whose enumeration forms were not submitted (for inclusion in the electoral rolls), along with reasons for such non-submission or non-inclusion in the electoral list (that is, whether it is because of death of voter, migration, duplicate entries, untraceability, etc.) against each name; 2. Direct the ECI to publish an assembly constituency and part/booth wise list of voters whose enumeration forms have been marked as “not recommended by the BLOs” (for inclusion in the electoral roll), to enable the petitioners, the general public, as well as political parties, to cross-check and verify the same..The matter will be heard on August 12, along with a batch of petitions challenging the SIR in Bihar ahead of the upcoming Assembly elections. .[Live Coverage]