The Supreme Court on Friday asked the Election Commission of India to either accept Aadhaar or any of the 11 approved documents for the Bihar Special Intensive Revision (SIR). The court said the entire process should be simple and voter-friendly. It also directed that voters whose names were deleted, should be allowed to submit their claims online using Aadhaar or other valid documents.
Supreme Court directs BLAs to assist voters
The Supreme Court directed booth-level agents (BLAs) of political parties in Bihar to help voters submit the required forms using either Aadhaar or any of the 11 approved documents. The court also asked all major political parties to be made part of the case to ensure voters are supported in the process.
The bench also expressed surprise that political parties had not taken active steps to correct the names of voters wrongly deleted from the electoral rolls during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR).
Concerns over deletion of voters in Bihar
The Election Commission told the court that around 85,000 new voters have registered during the SIR in Bihar, but only two objections were raised by political parties’ booth-level agents.
The controversy started after opposition parties claimed that genuine voters’ names were being deleted without proper checks. They also argued that the SIR process was unfair since Aadhaar, one of the most widely held documents, was not initially included among the 11 documents required to add a voter’s name.
The EC on Aug 18 published the names of about 65 lakh people removed from the draft rolls as part of the SIR. This followed a SC order that asked the EC to release the list by Aug 19 and submit a compliance report by Aug 22.
The Commission said it has now published the names of voters marked as Absentee, Shifted, or Dead (ASD) across polling booths and also uploaded them online.