Supreme Court to hear challenges to pan-India Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls from November 11.
EC defends Bihar SIR, denies disproportionate exclusion of any community.
First phase of Bihar assembly elections completed; second phase voting on November 11.
The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear petitions challenging the Election Commission’s decision to conduct a pan-India Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, with hearings set to begin on November 11.
A bench comprising Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi said it would try to accommodate other listed matters to prioritise the SIR-related cases. Advocate Prashant Bhushan, representing the NGO Association of Democratic Reforms, told the court that the issue “goes to the root of democracy.”
Bhushan highlighted the urgency of the matter, noting that the SIR exercise has already commenced in several states. The top court is also examining separate petitions questioning the validity of the SIR in Bihar.
On October 16, the Election Commission defended the Bihar SIR before the apex court, describing it as “accurate” and claiming that the petitioner political parties and NGOs were merely making “false allegations” to discredit the process. The commission also pointed out that no voter has filed an appeal regarding name deletions since the publication of the final electoral roll.
The EC rejected claims that the SIR disproportionately excluded Muslims from the final electoral list of Bihar. The state’s final electoral roll, published on September 30, recorded 7.42 crore electors, a decrease of nearly 47 lakh from the 7.89 crore listed prior to the SIR. However, it was 17.87 lakh higher than the draft list of 7.24 crore published on August 1.
The draft had initially removed 65 lakh voters due to reasons such as deaths, migration, and duplicate entries. In the revision process, 21.53 lakh new electors were added, while 3.66 lakh names were removed, resulting in a net increase of 17.87 lakh.
The first phase of the Bihar assembly elections covering 121 of the 243 seats concluded on Thursday. The remaining 122 constituencies are scheduled to vote on November 11, with counting of votes planned for November 14, PTI reported.
(With inputs from PTI)
