The Supreme Court has sought the Election Commission’s response after a plea was filed urging the apex court to direct the poll panel to disclose details of the 65 lakh names that have been deleted from the Bihar draft electoral roll published August 1 after the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter lists.
The court will hear the matter on August 12 along with other petitions challenging the SIR in Bihar. The plea was mentioned on Wednesday morning before a bench of Justice Surya Kant, Justice Ujjal Bhuyan and Justice N.K. Singh.
"Draft roll says 65 lakh names have been omitted. But no list of those 65 lakh names given, and it says 32 lakh migrated, and no other details,” advocate Prashant Bhushan, who has filed the plea on behalf of the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), said, as reported by legal news website Bar and Bench.
“They should disclose, who are 65 lakh? Who have migrated and who are dead? Apparently, the BLOs [booth-level officers] have recommended that person be removed or not be removed...they have published that for two constituencies...but what about other areas? We seek disclosure…," Bhushan reportedly argued.
The Election Commission is reported to have said that the information has been shared with representatives of political parties.
"Give a list of political parties who were supplied with it. We will hear the case on August 12. File your reply by then," Justice Kant told the ECI's counsel, as reported by Bar and Bench.
Bhushan said that most of those whose forms have been received had “not given any of these forms".
Justice Kant reportedly said: "We will see that every voter likely to be affected gets the required information.”
The court told the EC to file a reply by Saturday and give it to Bhushan. “Then we can see what is disclosed and what is not disclosed," the court reportedly said,
The figure of 65 lakh names deleted is from an Election Commission press release of July 25.
The BLOs and BLAs (booth-level agents) had reported that 22 lakh had died, 7 lakh voters were registered in multiple locations and around 35 lakh had migrated or could not be traced, the poll panel said.
"It fails to provide any explanation as to why these names were not included in the Draft Electoral Rolls; whether for reason of having been deceased, permanently migrated out of Bihar, being untraceable or on the ground of duplicate entry," the plea said.
The ADR said that these details are necessary to cross-check and verify and that it is not enough to share names with political parties.
"It is to be noted that as per the Election Commission, those whose names do not figure in the draft roll stand do not enjoy the right to routine legal remedies (notice, personal hearing and appeals) available under Section 21A of the Registration of Voters Rules. They do not have the option of participating in the process of claims and objections and thus are at the biggest risk of disenfranchisement," the organisation argued.
The ADR has submitted that the ECI has done away with an earlier practice of publishing the list of deleted electors. It also alleged that in at least two districts, Darbhanga and Kaimur, many voters have not been recommended for inclusion though their forms were uploaded.