The Supreme Court on Monday said it would set aside the ongoing special intensive revision of poll rolls in Bihar if it found that the Election Commission was not following the rules regarding the enrolment of voters or their exclusion.
A bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi also said that its judgment on the batch of petitions filed by individuals and political parties challenging the Bihar SIR would apply to other states where the poll panel proposes to conduct a similar exercise from January.
The petitioners had challenged the reported exclusion of over 65 lakh voters from the draft electoral rolls on the ground that the eliminated voters were either dead or had migrated to other cities, towns or states. The bench gave an oral assurance while adjourning to October 7 the final hearing on the petitions assailing the SIR in Bihar.
The court also issued formal notices to the petitioners and the EC on a fresh application filed by advocate Ashwini Upadhyaya in which he had challenged the apex court’s September 8 direction to the poll panel to include Aadhaar cards as the “12th document” by while updating the electoral rolls in Bihar. Upadhyaya had contended that the order passed by the Supreme Court on September 8 was contrary to the Act.
Upadhyaya argued: “Keeping Aadhaar with the 11 other documents is completely contrary to law. Aadhaar is issued to foreigners also. Please modify the order dated 8th September. Otherwise, it will
be disastrous.”
Justice Bagchi observed: “Whether disastrous or not will be decided by the ECI.”
When advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for one of the petitioners, complained that the poll panel was violating its own rules and not complying with the directions of even uploading the names of deleted voters and reasons for their rejection, the bench assured that it would pass appropriate orders after hearing the EC.
“What difference will it make if they don’t follow the rules? If we are satisfied that there is some illegality, we can set it aside,” Justice Kant
remarked.
When another counsel complained that the EC was proposing to conduct similar SIR exercises in other states from January, the bench said it would pass the necessary judgment in the Bihar case first, which in any case, would have a bearing on the rest of the country.
Senior advocate Abhishek Singhvi, appearing for several Opposition parties, including the Congress, also requested the court to take up the matter at the earliest.
“We can’t express any piecemeal opinion at this stage. But what we are proposing in the meantime, our judgment on Bihar will obviously have an impact on others too,” the bench remarked while adjourning the matter to
October 7.