SC asks EC to furnish details of 3.66 lakh excluded voters from final Bihar electoral roll

The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the Election Commission to provide details of the 3.66 lakh voters excluded from the final electoral roll prepared after Bihar's Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise.

The poll panel informed the apex court that most of the names added in the final list after the publication of the draft list on August 30 were of new voters and that no complaint or appeal has been filed till now by any excluded voter.

A bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi passed the directions after some petitioners, including political leaders from opposition parties like RJD, Congress and CPI (M), said that the Election Commission (EC) has not given any notice or reasons to the deleted voters for their exclusion from the final electoral list.

The bench, which was hearing a batch of pleas challenging the June 24 decision of the Election Commission to conduct the SIR in poll-bound Bihar, said the EC will submit whatever information it gets on excluded voters by Thursday (October 9), when it will hold the next hearing on these pleas.

The top court said everyone has the draft electoral roll and the final list has also been published on September 30, so the required data can be furnished through a comparative analysis.

Justice Bagchi told senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi, appearing for the poll panel, that court orders have resulted in more transparency and access to the electoral process.

The bench said that since it appears from the number of electors in the final list that there is an appreciation of numbers from the draft rolls; therefore, to avoid any confusion, the identity of add-ons should be disclosed.

"You'd agree with us that the degree of transparency and access has improved in the electoral process. It appears from the data that there was a 65 lakh deletion in the draft list which you published, and we said whoever is dead or moved is all right, but if you are deleting someone, please follow Rule 21 and the SOP.

"We also said that whoever is deleted, please put up their data in your electoral offices. Now the final list appears to be an appreciation of numbers, and there is confusion in the general democratic process -- what is the identity of the add-ons, are they of deleted names or new names. You have the draft and the final list. Just cull out these details and give us the information," Justice Bagchi said.

Dwivedi replied that most of the names added are of new voters and there were a few old voters whose names were added after the draft roll was published.

"No complaint or appeal filed till now by any excluded voters," Dwivedi said.