SC to EC: Furnish details of 3.66L excluded voters

Despite the Election Commission's assertion that no exclud- ed voter has filed an appeal after Bihar's Special Intensive Revision (SIR), the apex court has ordered the poll panel to disclose full details of the 3.66 lakh deleted names to uphold electoral transparency. The EC must submit all available data on excluded voters by October 9, when the court resumes hearing petitions challenging the SIR exercise. According to the final roll, 21.53 lakh new electors were added, 3.66 lakh names removed, yielding a net increase of 17.87 lakh voters

- PRESS TRUST OF INDIA

The Supreme Court Tuesday asked the Election Commission to provide it with the details of 3.66 lakh excluded voters from the final electoral roll prepared after Bihar’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise.

The Election Commission informed the apex court that most of the names added are of new voters and that no complaint or appeal has been filed till now by any excluded voter.

A bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi said the poll panel will submit whatever information it gets on excluded voters by Thursday (October 9), when it will conduct further hearing on the pleas challenging the SIR exercise.

The top court said everyone has the draft electoral roll and the final list has also been published on September 30, so the required data can be furnished through a comparative analysis.