NGO, ADR move Supreme Court challenging revision of electoral rolls in Bihar
It added that the documentation process requirements of the directive, lack of due process, as well as the unreasonably short timeline for the said SIR of Electoral Roll in Bihar, further make this exercise bound to result in the removal of names of lakhs of genuine voters from electoral rolls, leading to their disenfranchisement.
Seeking to quash the direction of ECI's SIR order of 24, June 2025, the ADR said, the ECI, by doing so, has shifted the onus of being on the voters' list from the State to citizens.
It has excluded identification documents such as Aadhar or ration cards which further make marginalised communities and the poor more vulnerable to exclusion from voting.
"The Declaration as required under the SIR process is violative of Article 326 in so far as it requires a voter to provide documents to prove his/her citizenship and also citizenships of his/her mother or father, failing which his/her name would not be added to the draft electoral roll and can be deleted from the same," the ADR said.
Terming the ECI's order as unreasonable and impractical timeline to conduct SIR in Bihar, the petitioner, ADR said that with close proximity to state elections which are due in November 2025, there are lakhs of citizens (whose names did not appear in 2003 ER) who do not possess the documents as required under the SIR order.
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