Top court seeks ECI response on Bihar voter deletion allegations

The Supreme Court on Wednesday directed the Election Commission of India (ECI) to file a reply by August 9 in response to allegations that over 6.5 million names were deleted from Bihar’s draft electoral rolls without transparency during the special intensive revision (SIR) exercise.

- Utkarsh Anand

A bench of Justices Surya Kant, Ujjal Bhuyan and N Kotiswar Singh issued the directive while hearing an application filed by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), which claimed that ECI failed to disclose who the deleted voters were and whether they were deceased or had migrated.

Advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for NGO ADR, submitted that the draft list released on ‘August | lacked crucial information. “They have not specified who the 6.5 million omitted voters are. There is no clarity on whether these are deceased persons, those who have migrated, or others. Moreover, political parties were not given access to the lists at the block level,” Bhushan argued.

He submitted in many cases, names were included or excluded from rolls without the recommendation of Booth Level Officers. “More than 75% of those included have not submitted the required 11 documents. BLOs themselves filled the forms without verifying any documents,” said the lawyer, citing instances from two constituencies where nearly 12% of entries lacked BLO endorsement.

The bench observed that as per standard operating procedure, draft electoral rolls must be shared with representatives of political parties at the block level. “This must be ensured,” remarked the court, asking ECI to clarify if and when the draft rolls were circulated to political parties prior to publication.