The Supreme Court on Thursday, 14 August, ordered the Election Commission of India to make public the names of 65 lakh voters deleted from electoral rolls following the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise in Bihar, along with reasons for their exclusion, including death, migration, or double registration.
The apex court also said that the poll body must publicise that those excluded from the lists can furnish their Aadhaar cards with their applications to be included in the final list, LiveLaw.in reported.
The directive comes just four days after the EC told the apex court that the law does not require the poll body to prepare or share any separate list of people missing from draft electoral rolls, or to publish the reasons for their non-inclusion.
A bench comprising Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi directed the EC to publish the list on the website of the Chief Electoral Officer of Bihar by 19 August.
The direction came after the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) moved court against the published draft voter rolls on 1 August, which did not include details of deleted voters.
On 28 July, the Court refused to halt the August 1 publication of draft rolls but urged the ECI to consider Aadhaar and EPIC details, stressing the need for “en masse inclusion” over exclusion.
After the rolls were published, the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) alleged that the ECI withheld details of omitted voters, some of whom were wrongly declared dead.
ADR claimed Block Level Officers (BLOs) had not recommended certain names and reasons for deletions were missing. The ECI responded that it was not legally required to publish separate lists or reasons for non-inclusion.
Petitioners argued the SIR was unlawful and shifted the burden of proving citizenship onto voters. The Court acknowledged possible inadvertent errors, questioned whether Section 21(3) of the Representation of the People Act allowed the ECI broad discretion in such exercises, deferred West Bengal SIR issues, and sought clarity on whether draft rolls met 1960 Rule requirements after alleged removal of the online search feature.
(With inputs from LiveLaw.in)