The Supreme Court on Friday, 10th July, declined to stay the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar. The bench of Justices Sudhanshu Dhulia and Joymalya Bagchi also directed the Election Commission of India (ECI) to consider Aadhaar, voter ID cards, and ration cards as valid documents during the verification drive.
However, during the hearing, the apex court raised important concerns about the timing of a special revision of voter lists currently being carried out in Bihar, just months before the state is expected to go to the polls. While the court clarified that there’s nothing wrong with conducting such an exercise, it questioned why this wasn’t done earlier and why it is happening so close to the elections.
The bench said that updating and verifying voter lists is a crucial part of the democratic process, but it should ideally be done promptly. “The issue is not whether the revision should happen or not, but why it is happening now, and not earlier,” the court noted.
The Election Commission (EC), through its lawyer Rakesh Dwivedi, defended the move and asked, “If the Election Commission doesn’t have the authority to revise the voter list, then who will do it?” He further said, regular updates to the voter list are necessary and legally allowed under the Representation of the People Act. He added that it is within the EC’s powers to include or remove names to ensure the list remains accurate.
During the hearing, the Supreme Court requested that the Election Commission clarify three things: whether it has the power to update the voter roll, what process it used for this special update, and why it did it at this time. The court further stated that if the commission had wanted to check the citizenship of voters, particularly in Bihar, it could have initiated the process much earlier. In this regard, the Election Commission told the court that under Article 326 of the Constitution, verifying citizenship is necessary to become a voter in India.
Concerns over rejection of Aadhaar and Voter ID
The court also expressed unease regarding the reports that Aadhaar cards and voter ID cards are not being accepted as valid documents during the process of revision. Senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan, who argued for one of the petitioners, emphasised that almost 7.9 crore individuals can be impacted and expressed puzzlement as to why Aadhaar and voter ID cards are being disregarded.
Opposition leaders challenge EC’s move
More than ten petitions have been filed against this exercise. One of the main petitioners is the NGO Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR). Several opposition leaders have also approached the top court against the EC’s order, including RJD MP Manoj Jha, TMC MP Mahua Moitra, Congress leader KC Venugopal, NCP’s Supriya Sule, CPI’s D Raja, SP’s Harinder Singh Malik, Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Arvind Sawant, JMM’s Sarfaraz Ahmad, and CPI (ML) leader Dipankar Bhattacharya.
These leaders have asked the court to withdraw the EC’s directive for the special revision in Bihar on the grounds of voter suppression and inadequate implementation.
