The Supreme Court on Thursday directed the Election Commission to publish the names of all 65 lakh voters whose names were deleted after the Special Intensive Revision of the electoral rolls in Bihar in an “EPIC based searchable” manner by Tuesday, August 18.

At the end of the day’s hearing the Supreme Court bench of Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi instructed the EC to display the names of the voters at the district level websites.

“It will be displayed on the website of every district electoral officer. The same shall also reveal the reason for non-inclusion in the draft roll,” Justice Kant said in the order.

The bench made it clear that the list should be accessible by Electors Photo Identity Card (EPIC) numbers.

“The state election officer may also take the soft copies of the district wise list of voters not included in the draft roll and shall display the district wise list on the website of the chief electoral officer (Bihar). Election Commission shall obtain compliance report from all the booth level and district level officers and file compliance report.”

Through a news release on July 25, the Election Commission had informed 65 lakh names were deleted from the draft voter list, of which 22 lakh had died, seven lakh were registered in multiple locations and 35 lakh could not either be traced or had migrated.

The Election Commission, caught in a political fire over alleged electoral roll manipulation, had earlier informed the Supreme Court the statutory framework does not require it to prepare or share any separate list of names of people not included in the draft electoral rolls, or publish the reasons for non-inclusion of anyone in the draft rolls for any reason.

The central poll panel had filed the affidavit in the apex court on Saturday, August 9.