The Supreme Court on Thursday directed that the estimated 3.66 lakh people excluded from Bihar’s final voter list be given free legal assistance to file their appeals before the Election Commission.
It said the poll panel must pass a “reasoned order” while dealing with the appeals.
The top court asked the Bihar Legal Services Authority to renotify, for public awareness, the mobile numbers and other contact details of the paralegal volunteers and free legal aid counsels in every district, taluk and village.
The paralegal volunteers and free legal aid counsels are to approach the block-level officers and collect the excluded voters’ details for the filing of the appeals. The entire appeal exercise will be free of charge.
The bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi passed the directions while observing that time was running short, with Assembly polls announced in Bihar (on November 6 and 11).
The next hearing is onOctober 16.
Several petitions — moved by the Association for Democratic Reforms and several political parties, politicians and individuals — have challenged the special intensive revision (SIR) of Bihar’s electoral rolls as illegal and unconstitutional.
They have argued that the exercise, which seeks documentary proof of citizenship, will end up disenfranchising a large number of impoverished, marginalised and poorly educated people.
In an affidavit on Wednesday, the poll panel told the Supreme Court that it was constitutionally obligated to ensure that Indian citizens alone were allowed to vote.
It added that the Aadhaar was not proof of either citizenship or domicile (residence in a state).
On September 8, the apex court had directed the Election Commission to accept the Aadhaar card as proof of identity for the SIR.
In its affidavit, the poll panel said it had “in compliance with the above directions, issued instructions” on September 9 to Bihar’s chief electoral officer “that the Aadhaar Card shall be treated as the 12th document in addition to the 11 documents listed”.
It added that the Aadhaar “shall be accepted and utilised as proof of identity and not as proof of citizenship”.
“(The) commission is conscious of its responsibilities to ensure that the purity and integrity of electoral roll is maintained and only the eligible persons as per Article 326, i.e. of 18 years of age and citizens of India and fulfilling the residency requirement, are enrolled in the electoral roll.”
Pan-India SIR
In another affidavit, the poll panel reaffirmed its intention of conducting SIRs across the country.
“The Schedule for the conduct of SIR for the rest or the country is to be issued separately in due course,” it said.