Will step in if there is any mass exclusion of voters in Bihar: SC

The Supreme Court on Tuesday warned that it will “step in” if there is any mass exclusion of voters in poll-bound Bihar, asking petitioners challenging the Election Commission of India’s (ECI) special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls to bring before it at least 15 individuals who have been wrongly declared dead in the draft electoral list, scheduled to be published on August 1.

- Utkarsh Anand

“This is a constitutional institution. We will deem that its actions are in accordance with law. But if there is mass exclusion, we will immediately step in,” a bench of justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi said.

The court scheduled the next hearing for August 12 and 13, indicating that the first stage of hearings will focus on objections to the draft list, while the broader constitutional challenges to ECI's notification could be taken up in a second phase in September.

The court’s comments came as petitioners alleged that the Commission has arbitrarily excluded or moved nearly 6.5 million voters from the rolls, either declaring them deceased or marking them as having permanently relocated. “If you say people have been declared dead, bring 15 such people before us who are alive,” the court told the petitioners.

Senior counsel Kapil Sibal, Gopal Sankaranarayanan and advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for the petitioners, raised concerns about the transparency of the process, arguing that neither the basis nor the names of the 6.5 million voters have been publicly shared.

“How will voters even know they have been excluded unless they see the draft list? And how do they get themselves included again?” Bhushan asked. Sibal said ECI has refused to provide them with the list of names, stating that it would be available on the website.