SC to hear on Sep 8 pleas against EC's decision to conduct SIR in Bihar

New Delhi: The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear on Monday a batch of pleas, including those of political parties, challenging the June 24 decision of the Election Commission to conduct Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in poll-bound Bihar.

A bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi will consider the response of political parties like the Rashtriya Janta Dal (RJD), AIMIM and other petitioners on the poll panel’s note where it has submitted that 99.5 per cent of the 7.24 crore electors in the draft electoral roll had filed their eligibility documents in the SIR exercise.

The top court will resume hearing on the batch of pleas including those filed by NGO, activists and political parties since August 22, when it had directed the Election Commission to allow excluded voters from the draft roll to submit their claims through the online mode, besides making physical submissions in the SIR exercise in Bihar.

On September 1, the top court, while hearing some applications filed by political parties for extension of deadlines, was told by the poll panel that claims, objections and corrections in the draft electoral roll prepared in Bihar under the SIR exercise can be filed beyond September 1 but these would be considered once the electoral roll is finalised.

It had said claims and objections in the draft roll can be filed till the last date of nomination forms in each assembly constituency.

The top court also termed the confusion over the Bihar SIR as "largely a trust issue" and directed the state legal service authority to deploy paralegal volunteers to assist individual voters and political parties in filing claims and objections to the draft roll, which was published on August 1.

The poll panel, which had opposed any extension of the September 1 deadline for filing of claims and objections as per the SIR schedule, had submitted that post the top court's August 22 order, till August 30, only 22,723 claims had been filed for inclusion and 1,34,738 objections had been filed for exclusion.

According to the June 24 schedule of the poll panel for the Bihar SIR, the deadline for filing claims and objections to the draft roll ended on September 1, and the final electoral roll will be published on September 30.

The top court had asked the political parties to submit their replies in response to the EC's note.

The top court had said the paralegal volunteers would submit a confidential report to the district judges concerned and the collated data of the state would be considered on September 8.

It had said the EC has to follow the procedure prescribed in the June 24 order related to Bihar SIR and expressed concern over the high rate of objections filed for exclusion of names from the draft roll.

"Political parties need to activate themselves," it had said and posted the matter for September 8.

The RJD's plea filed through advocate Fauzia Shakil and the AIMIM's through advocate Nizam Pasha have sought extension of the deadline to file claims and objections in the poll revision exercise in poll-bound Bihar.

The special intensive revision of the voter list in Bihar -- the first since 2003 -- sparked a huge political row, with the opposition parties alleging that the exercise is aimed at depriving people of their right to vote. The EC has maintained that SIR is being conducted to clean the voter list by deleting names of people who are dead, have duplicate voter cards or are illegal immigrants.

The SIR's findings reduced the total number of registered voters in Bihar, from 7.9 crore before the exercise to 7.24 crore after conducting it.