Bihar voter roll row is largely a trust deficit issue, observes Supreme Court

The Supreme Court on Tuesday described the controversy over Bihar’s special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls as “largely a trust deficit issue.” The Election Commission of India (ECI) told the court that about 6.5 crore of the state’s 7.9 crore voters did not need to submit fresh documents, as they or their parents were already on the 2003 electoral roll.

A bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi is hearing multiple pleas challenging the EC’s June 24 decision to conduct the SIR, which petitioners claim could disenfranchise one crore voters. The bench noted that if 7.24 crore voters responded to the exercise, “it demolishes the theory of one crore voters missing.”

The court also backed the EC’s stance that Aadhaar and voter ID cards alone cannot conclusively prove citizenship, saying they must be supported by other documents. Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, representing RJD leader Manoj Jha, argued that officials had refused to accept Aadhaar, ration and EPIC cards, leaving residents struggling to produce birth certificates and other papers.

Justice Kant rejected the suggestion that “nobody in Bihar” had such documents, saying that if that were the case, the situation in other states would be worse.

Senior advocates Abhishek Singhvi and Prashant Bhushan questioned the timeline of the exercise and the deletion of 65 lakh voters as dead, migrated or registered elsewhere. Political activist Yogendra Yadav accused the EC of “total disenfranchisement,” claiming booth-level officers focused on deleting names and that the state’s adult population exceeded the EC’s figures.

Sibal said instances had emerged of living people being marked dead and vice versa. EC counsel Rakesh Dwivedi admitted minor errors at the draft stage but said they could be corrected before the final roll is published on September 30.

The court directed the EC to be ready with detailed data on voter numbers before and after the exercise, as well as figures on deceased voters. The hearing will continue on Wednesday.

Petitioners include MPs from the RJD, Trinamool Congress, Congress, NCP (Sharad Pawar faction), CPI, Samajwadi Party, Shiv Sena (Uddhav Thackeray), JMM, CPI (ML), as well as civil society groups like PUCL and ADR.
(With PTI inputs)