In order to ease out things for those unable to point out corrections, the Supreme Court on Monday requested the Chairman of the Bihar State Legal Services Authority to depute para legal volunteers to assist voters and political parties in submitting online claims, objections to the electoral roll being prepared as part of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of Bihar electoral rolls.
However, a Bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymlaya Bagchi refrained from issuing any direction to extend the deadline for submitting such claims beyond September 1 (today).This was after the Election Commission of India (ECI) assured that even objections sent after today would be considered before the electoral roll is finalised.The Court recorded the ECI's submission that this process will continue till the last date for submitting names of nominees intending to stand for the upcoming State Assembly elections.
"The process of consideration of claims will continue till the last date of nominations. Let the claims/objections be continued to be filed," its order said.The Court added,"We also find that there are seriously disputed question of facts with regard to the submission on acceptance of the claims/ objections. With a view to facilitate the voters who are the central issue in these proceedings, we request the deputy chairman of the Bihar state legal services authority to issue instructions, preferably by tomorrow before noon, to depute/ notify para legal volunteers.
They will assist the voters/ political parties for online submission of claims/ objections/ corrections. Each para legal volunteer (PLV) will then submit a confidential report to the chairman to the District Legal Services Authority. This information so collected from the PLV may be collated at the level of State Legal Services Authority for further consideration."
The Court was hearing a batch of petitions challenging the Bihar SIR exercise.During the last hearing on August 22, the Court had said that people excluded from the draft electoral roll can submit Aadhaar card along with the requisite form to object to their exclusion.
This effectively meant that Aadhaar can be used as proof to get oneself included in the voters' list.The Court had further asked political parties to assist the people who have been excluded from the draft electoral roll. It expressed surprise at the submission that only two objections have come from BLAs of political parties.
During today's hearing of the matter, the Court reiterated that Aadhaar has to be given its due weightage as an identity verification document."We have to be clear about Section 9 of the Aadhar card. Whatever value has been attached to the Aadhaar card has to be acknowledged," Justice Kant said.Appearing for the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), advocate Prashant Bhushan argued that voters need to be informed about which documents the ECI has formally acknowledged receiving, before they may decide on whether to submit Aadhaar as well while making an objection or a claim.
"They have not given the voters what has been received from them. Unless I know that…. They didn’t accept Aadhar in the first stage ...Suppose I have not attached any document. They are saying any body who has submitted the form is in the draft list. Our assertion is many of those forms are not filled by the voters themselves," Bhushan said.ECI counsel, Senior Advocate Rakesh Dwivedi replied that voters would be notified of any document discrepancy within seven days."99.5% of 7.24 crore (voters) have submitted documents. Most of the political parties are filing applications only for deletion and not for inclusion," Dwivedi said.
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