The Supreme Court will on Monday hear an interlocutory application by the RJD seeking an extension of the deadline till September 15 to file claims and objections with regard to the exclusion of over 65 lakh voters during the special intensive revision of electoral rolls in poll-bound Bihar.

The current deadline is September 1.

A bench of Justices Surya Kant, Joymalya Bagchi and Vipul Pancholi agreed to list the matter for hearing on Monday upon requests from advocates Prashant Bhushan and Nizam Pasha appearing for the Association of Democratic Rights (ADR) and the RJD, respectively.

According to the RJD’s application, the number of claims filed was rising exponentially, and genuine electors who had been erroneously dropped by the Election Commission from the draft rolls would not be able to vote in the upcoming elections if the deadline was not extended.

“The EC in its manual on electoral rolls has also mentioned that no suo motu deletion shall be done in the election year. In the present case, the period of filing claims, unless extended, will have an impact on the purity of electoral rolls,” it added. “...The present application has been made bona fide and in the interest of justice. The applicant and citizens of the state of Bihar will suffer grave and irreparable loss if the present application is not allowed.”

The application urged the top court to direct the EC to publicise the court’s order of August 22 and inform the electors that claims could be filed with an Aadhaar card.

It also sought a direction to the poll panel to update the claims received from the deleted electors and acknowledged by booth-level agents in its daily status report against the party.

“Direct the Election Commission to accept Aadhaar card for the electors who have submitted their enumeration form and not delete any entry from the draft roll on the ground of insufficiency of document in case an elector has an Aadhaar card; and/or

“Pass any such other order/orders as this Hon’ble Court may deem fit and proper in the circumstances of the case,” the RJD plea added.

The application noted that the number of polling booths had increased to 90,712 and the RJD appointed BLAs in 47,506 polling booths, which is approximately 52 per cent of the polling booths, in compliance with the apex court’s August 22 order.

The RJD said since the order permitted the filing of claims with Aadhaar, the number of claims had doubled from 84,305 on August 22 to 1,78,948 on August 27.

“However, across districts, there are many instances where the officers have refused to accept the claims only with the Aadhaar and have in utter disregard to the orders passed by this Hon’ble Court have insisted upon one of the 11 documents mentioned in the EC order dated June 24, 2025.

“…It is pertinent to note that despite the orders of this Hon’ble Court to accept Aadhaar, the EC has completed the exercise without considering Aadhaar card as a standalone document...,” the application complained.