Publish details of SIR deletions, take Aadhaar: Supreme Court to Election Commission

Hindustan Times

2 days ago

The Supreme Court on Thursday directed the Election Commission of India (ECI) to make public by August 19 the district-wise list of nearly 6.5 million voters whose names have been left out of Bihar's draft electoral rolls during the special intensive revision (SIR) exercise, along with specific reasons for their non-inclusion, stressing that transparency was essential to bolster public confidence and safeguard the constitutional right to vote. A bench of justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi said preparing electoral rolls was not a mere administrative formality but a process with direct implications for a citizen's franchise. (FILE)
The court also ordered that ECI will accept Aadhaar cards from those whose names do not find place in the draft electoral rolls. A bench of justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi said preparing electoral rolls was not a mere administrative formality but a process with direct implications for a citizen's franchise.
'A fair procedure is a must,' the court observed, warning that the absence of clarity in exclusions could strain public trust.
'Transparency will help create voter confidence…If Poonam Devi has been omitted, Poonam Devi must be able to know that she has been deleted and why she has been deleted…why should voters run after local political parties (to learn whether their names have been struck off)… We don't want citizens' rights to be dependent on political party workers,' the bench told senior counsel Rakesh Dwivedi, who appeared for ECI and concurred with the court's directives.
The court's directions virtually rebuff the ECI's stand that it has no statutory duty to prepare or publish a separate list of the nearly 6.5 million names missing from Bihar's draft electoral rolls, or to disclose the reasons for their exclusion, insisting instead that the draft rolls need only be shared with recognised political parties and authorised officials.
The Opposition hailed the direction, calling it a 'victory' for democracy and a 'slap' to 'the BJP's Election Commission'. The BJP countered this saying that 'no one was opposed' to SIR, and claimed that the court's directions were a 'disappointment' for the Congress.
Responding to the court order, ECI said it was 'already accepting Aadhaar card as proof,' sharing a photograph of the enumeration form used during the SIR. 'List of deceased, voter at two places and permanently shifted is being shared with political parties since July 20, 2025,' it said.
In its interim order, passed on a clutch of petitions challenging the Bihar SIR, the bench recorded ECI's agreement that the list of approximately 6.5 million voters, who were on the electoral rolls in 2025 but are missing from the draft rolls, will be displayed on the websites of every district electoral officer (DEO), arranged district-wise and booth-wise, and accessible by the EPIC (Electors Photo ID Card) number.
Each entry will specify whether the omission was due to death, migration, duplication, or other reasons, recorded the court, adding notices about the list will be published in widely circulated vernacular newspapers, broadcast on TV and radio, and posted on the official social media handles of DEOs. The order further stated that booth-wise lists, with reasons, will be displayed on notice boards in panchayat or block development offices by booth level officers (BLOs). The lists will be in EPIC-based searchable format to make them easily usable for the public. The bench also directed that the same information be uploaded on the website of the chief electoral officer of Bihar.
The bench directed that public notices will explicitly state that aggrieved persons may file claims for inclusion in the final rolls by furnishing an Aadhaar card, in addition to the 11 documents already accepted.
During the hearing, the bench repeatedly underlined that voters should not have to approach political parties to find out whether their names had been dropped. Responding to Dwivedi's assertions that ECI has circulated draft rolls to political parties as well as in the relevant areas, the bench asked: 'Can't you have a mechanism where they do not have to run after local political parties? Why don't you put it on the internet also?'
The court added that placing the lists in the public domain could counter perceptions of opacity. 'If you bring it in the public domain, the narrative (against the ECI) disappears,' said the bench, also insisting that the public notices be 'layman-friendly' and in simple language, so that ordinary voters could easily understand the process and know how to take remedial steps.
On the petitioners' request, made by senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan and advocates Vrinda Grover and Prashant Bhushan, that the list be in a 'searchable format', the court agreed. 'It has to be searchable,' said the bench, rejecting Dwivedi's reliance on a 2018 Supreme Court judgment in the Kamal Nath case that said voter lists need not be searchable.
The directions came on a bunch of petitions challenging ECI's June 24 directive ordering an SIR ahead of the upcoming Bihar assembly polls. The petitioners that include NGOs, political leaders and activists have alleged that the process, if left unchecked, could disenfranchise millions of legitimate voters and undermine free and fair elections.
The petitioners argue SIR's documentation requirements and the omission of Aadhaar from ECI's official list of acceptable proof of citizenship risk excluding genuine voters. Represented through senior advocates including Kapil Sibal, Abhishek Manu Singhvi, Shadan Farasat, and Shoeb Alam, the petitioners question whether the commission can undertake such an exercise for verifying citizenship, contending that this power lies with the Union government.
ECI has defended SIR as necessary to update rolls that have not undergone intensive revision for nearly two decades, citing demographic changes and migration patterns. It maintains that exclusion from the draft rolls is not the same as deletion from the final rolls, and that no name will be removed without notice, hearing, and a reasoned order.
In its latest affidavit filed on August 9, the commission stressed that the 1950 Act and the 1960 Rules do not require it to prepare or publish a separate list of the nearly 6.5 million persons not included in the draft rolls, or to state the reasons for each non-inclusion.
SIR has become a major political flashpoint ahead of the Bihar assembly elections scheduled for later this year. Opposition parties in the INDIA bloc have staged protests in Parliament and written to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla seeking a special discussion on what they call an 'unprecedented' revision so close to state polls. Eight parties, including the Congress, RJD, Samajwadi Party, DMK, Trinamool Congress and Shiv Sena (UBT), have warned that the exercise could be replicated nationwide.
On August 8, Union home minister Amit Shah, addressing a rally in Bihar's Sitamarhi, launched a sharp attack on Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi and the INDIA bloc, accusing them of opposing the revision because 'names of infiltrators' were being removed from the lists. 'Infiltrators have no right to vote. Names of infiltrators must be removed from the voters' lists. But the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Congress are opposing SIR in Bihar because the names of infiltrators are being deleted,' Shah said.