Describing the Election Commission as the constitutional authority working as per law, the Supreme Court on Tuesday said that if the special intensive revision (SIR) of the voter list in Bihar is “large -scale names excluded” then it will immediately intervene.
A bench of Justice Suryakant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi set a deadline for considering the petitions challenging the SIR process of the Election Commission in Bihar and said that the hearing on the issue will be held on August 12 and 13.
Emphasizing this point, the bench asked the petitioners to “bring out 15 people who say they are dead and who are alive.”
On behalf of the petitioners, senior advocate Kapil Sibal and Advocate Prashant Bhushan once again alleged that people are being excluded from the draft list to be published by the Election Commission on August 1 and they will lose their important franchise.
Bhushan said that the Election Commission has issued a statement that 65 lakh people have not submitted calculation forms during the SIR process as they are either dead or permanently gone elsewhere. He said that these people have to apply afresh to join the list.
Justice Kant said, “The Election Commission of India is considered to be a constitutional authority as a constitutional authority. If any wrongdoing is done, you should bring it to the notice of the court. We will listen to you.”
Justice Bagchi said, “Your apprehension is that about 65 lakh voters will not be included in the draft list. Now the Election Commission is demanding a reform in the voter list. We are reviewing the process as a judicial authority. If we are out of the voter list on a large scale, we will immediately intervene. You bring out 15 people who say that they are dead, while they are dead.”
Sibal, who appeared on behalf of RJD MP Manoj Jha, said that the Election Commission knows who these 65 lakh people are and if they mention their names in the draft list, no one will have any problem.
Justice Kant said, “If nothing is clearly written in the draft list, then you should bring it to our notice.”
On behalf of the Election Commission, senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi said that calculations can be filed even after the draft list publication. The bench asked the petitioners and the Election Commission to file their written arguments by 8 August.
It appointed the petitioner side and the Election Commission side to file written presentations/compilation.
On Monday, the apex court said that the SIR process of the voter list in the electoral state Bihar should be collectively involved instead of being “collectively excluded”, and asked the Election Commission to continue to accept Aadhaar and voter ID card documents.
Underlining the “notion of reality” of both documents, the apex court also refused to stop the publication of the draft voter list in Bihar.
The draft voter list will be published on August 1 and the final voter list will be published on 30 September, while the opposition claims that due to this process, crores of eligible citizens will be deprived of their franchise.
On July 10, a bench headed by Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia asked the Election Commission to consider Aadhaar, voter ID card and ration card as valid documents and allow the Election Commission to continue its work in Bihar.
In the affidavit of the Election Commission, it has been justified the ongoing SIR of voter lists in Bihar, saying that this increases the purity of elections by “outspoken people out” from voter lists.
