Bihar SIR appears to be a trust deficit issue: SC

The Supreme Court on Tuesday observed that the special intensive revision (SIR) in Bihar appears to be a matter of trust deficit, adding inclusion or exclusion of citizens from electoral rolls was within the ambit of the Election Commission of India (ECI).

- Suchitra Kalyan Mohanty @ New Delhi

A bench of justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi, which commenced the hearing on a batch of petitions, called the SIR row "largely a trust deficit issue", going by the ECI's claim that roughly 6.5 crore of the total 7.9 crore voting population didn't have to file any documents for themselves or their parents who featured in the 2003 poll roll. Besides, "if out of 7.9 crore voters, 7.24 crore voters responded to SIR, it demolishes the theory of one crore voters missing or disenfranchised," the bench said.