New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear on September 8 pleas of the RJD and AIMIM for extending the deadline to file claims and objections in the special intensive revision of electoral rolls in poll-bound Bihar.
The deadline for filing claims and objections is September 1.
A bench of Justices Surya Kant, Joymalya Bagchi and Vipul M Pancholi said it would hear the applications of the political parties on September 8.
“List all the interlocutory applications along with the main matter on September 8,” the order said.
Advocate Prashant Bhushan and senior advocate Shoeb Alam, appearing for the Rashtriya Janta Dal (RJD), mentioned to the bench about several parties filing pleas for the extension of the deadline.
Advocate Nizam Pasha, appearing for the AIMIM, sought the extension due to large-scale filing of claims and objections. “The number of claims filed are exponentially rising. The deadline needs to be extended,” Alam said.
Pasha said over 80,000 claims were filed before the August 22 order whereas after the order around 95,000 claims have been filed so far.
“We are requesting that these applications be listed as early as possible,” he said.
The bench asked the petitioners why they hadn’t approached the Election Commission (EC) for relief.
Bhushan claimed their request was not considered by the EC.
The plea filed by RJD through advocate Fauzia Shakil said in the SIR, the number of polling booths had increased to 90,712 and the party appointed booth level agents (BLAs) in 47,506 polling booths which is approximately 52 per cent of the polling booths.
The party said after the August 22 court order, the claims along with Aadhaar card were collected by the BLAs and despite the acknowledgment of claims by booth level officers (BLO) claims were not lodged and were not reflected on the daily EC status report against the party to portray a wrong narrative that the BLAs of political parties were not cooperating and filing claims.
“Since the last order of this court dated August 22, 2025 which permitted the filing of claims along with Aadhaar card, the number of claims have doubled from 84,305 on August 22, 2025 to 1,78,948 electors on August 27, 2025 in only five days,” the RJD said.