The Supreme Court on Monday acknowledged the Election Commission of India's (ECI) assurance that claims and objections for voter registration in Bihar will continue to be considered even after the September 1 deadline, ahead of the finalisation of the draft electoral roll.
A bench comprising Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi noted the ECI submissions but did not extend the September 1 cutoff for filing objections. The court recorded that the process would continue until the last date of nominations, ensuring all inclusions and exclusions are integrated into the final roll.
The top court directed the Bihar Legal Services Authority (BLSA) to instruct district legal service authorities to deploy para-legal volunteers to assist voters and political parties in submitting claims, objections, and corrections online. Each volunteer is to submit a confidential report to the district and sessions judge, which will then be collated by the state legal service authorities.
During proceedings, senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi, representing the ECI, stressed that most political parties were filing objections aimed at deleting names from the draft list rather than submitting claims for inclusion. "No party, except the RJD and the CPI(M), have assisted the voters in filing objections," he noted.
Also read: Supreme Court backs EC on Aadhar
The court’s observations follow its August 22 direction allowing excluded electors to submit inclusion applications online, without the need for physical submission, either individually or with the help of booth-level agents (BLAs) from political parties. The apex court had instructed all 12 parties in Bihar to ensure that BLAs facilitated approximately 65 lakh excluded electors, barring deceased or voluntarily migrated individuals, to file objections by the September 1 deadline.
The ECI had earlier published a booth-wise list of the excluded 65 lakh electors on the websites of all 38 District Electoral Officers, detailing reasons for non-inclusion, such as death, relocation, or duplicate entries, in compliance with the Supreme Court’s August 14 directives.
Petitions challenging the ECI’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise were filed by RJD MP Manoj Jha, the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), PUCL, activist Yogendra Yadav, Trinamool MP Mahua Moitra, and former Bihar MLA Mujahid Alam. The petitioners sought to quash the ECI’s June 24 directive, contending that the exclusion of widely held documents like Aadhaar and ration cards would disproportionately affect poor and marginalised voters, particularly in rural Bihar.
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