In a big remark, the Supreme Court on Tuesday said that when 7.24 crore voters out of 7.29 crore have responded to the Election Commission of India (ECI) during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), it rules out the “theory of 1 crore missing voters”. The court was hearing a batch of petitions challenging the Bihar SIR, taking place just months away from assembly elections in the state.
“If out of 7.9 crore voters, 7.24 voters responded, it demolishes theory of 1 crore voters missing,” the SC said. The court told the petitioners that the case largely appears to be of “trust deficit, nothing else.”
“This is a case of trust deficiency that’s all,” Justice Kant remarked, while disagreeing with the submission that the people in Bihar do not have the majority of documents sought by the ECI as proof during the (SIR).
The poll panel, meanwhile, apprised the court that around 6.5 crore people didn’t have to file any documents for Bihar SIR as they or their parents were in there in the 2003 electoral roll.
The matter has been gaining concern as opposition continues to level serious charges against the top poll panel, calling the exercise a deliberate attempt to remove names of voters to benefit the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led NDA alliance during upcoming elections in Bihar.
What happened in the SC today?
Petitioners’ counsel Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal told the court of a case where 12 alive people have been shown to be dead by the electoral authorities. In response, senior Advocate Rakesh Dwivedi, representing the ECI, said that the roll published was only a draft.
He added that these submissions of the petitioners are errors that are bound to happen “in such a large exercise”.
On the petitioners’ claim of “mass-exclusion”, the top court said, “Mass exclusion will depend on facts and figures,” quoted Bar and Bench.
The court also heard the issue of the documents included in the list for showcasing proof of identity during the SIR. While petitioners’ argued that most of the enlisted documents are not available to people in Bihar, Justice Kant called it a sweeping argument.
“But something will be needed to see whether they are resident or not. There are family register, pension cards etc…very sweeping argument to say that people do not have these documents,” the Court said, the report added.
Sibal submitted that the electoral authorities are not even accepting Aadhaar and ration cards. To this, Justice Kant remarked that ECI was correct in saying that Aadhaar can’t be accepted as proof of citizenship.
Bihar SIR 2003 vs 2025 – What Yogendra Yadav told the court
Psephologist Yogendra Yadav appeared before the Supreme Court bench at the end of the hearing, and claimed the the SIR by design was leading to mass exclusion.
“Vast exclusion has already begun…exclusion is much more than 65 lakhs. This is not a failure of implementation of SIR, but because of the fact that wherever you implement SIR, the result will be the same,” Yadav said, quoted Bar and Bench.
“If it was done in 2003, the other side should point it out,” he said, adding that the SIR this time has not led to any additions.
“What was special in 2003 was that SIR was done apart from the word “intensive” being used. This is the first exercise in the history of the country where revision has taken place with zero additions. Zero additions,” he claimed.
Calling the ongoing revision “dreadful”, Yadav said that the SIR was the largest exercise of disenfranchisement.
He also claimed that more names of women have been deleted than men. He also pointed to two people within the courtroom who were allegedly declared dead by the electoral body.
“The figure is bound to cross 1 crore. These are declared as dead. They don’t appear. But they are alive…see them,” he said.
EC ‘assurance’ to SC on 65 lakh deleted names
During the hearing on August 6, the court was informed that the poll body has dropped a total of 65 lakh names from the draft Bihar electoral roll published on August 1. Petitioners added that the draft roll, which was earlier visible on their website till August 4, has now disappeared “suspiciously”.
The ECI said that it was a draft roll and assured the apex court that no name will be struck off from Bihar’s draft electoral roll without prior notice, a hearing opportunity and a reasoned order from the competent authority, the report added.
The ECI further said that under the Representation of People Act, 1950 and the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960, it is not bound to publish the reasons for non-inclusion of anyone in the draft electoral rolls for any reason.
