SC directs 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 it with the details of 3.66 lakh excluded voters from the final electoral roll prepared after Bihar's Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise.

The Election Commission informed the apex court that most of the names added are 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 said the poll panel will submit whatever information it gets on excluded voters by Thursday (October 9), when it will conduct further hearing on the pleas challenging the SIR exercise.

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 alright, 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," Justice Bagchi said.

Dwivedi replied that most additions of names 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.

On September 30, the EC, while publishing the final electoral list of the poll-bound Bihar, said that the total number of electors has come down by nearly 47 lakh to 7.42 crore in the final electoral roll from 7.89 crore before the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the voter list carried out by the Election Commission.

The final figure has, however, increased by 17.87 lakh from 7.24 crore electors named in the draft list issued on August 1, which had removed 65 lakh voters from the original list on various accounts, including deaths, migration and duplication of voters.

While 21.53 lakh new electors have been added to the draft list, 3.66 lakh names have been removed, resulting in a net increase of 17.87 lakh.

On October 6, announcing the poll schedule, the EC said elections will be held in 121 seats of the 243-member Assembly on November 6, while the remaining 122 constituencies will go to polls on November 11. The counting of votes will be held on November 14.