The Supreme Court on Thursday said it expects the Election Commission, as a responsible authority, to look into typographical errors and other mistakes that might have crept into the final list of the Bihar electoral roll prepared after the SIR exercise and come out with remedial measures.

The Election Commission, however, termed the Bihar SIR “accurate” and told the Supreme Court that the petitioner political parties and NGOs were merely content with making “false allegations” to discredit the exercise.

The poll body also told the court that not a single appeal had been filed by any voter against name deletions since the publication of the final electoral roll.

It denied the allegation of the petitioners that there was a “disproportionate exclusion of Muslims” from the final electoral roll of the state prepared after the months-long special intensive revision (SIR) exercise. “This communal approach is to be deprecated,” the poll panel said.

A bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi also noted the absence of political parties from the hearing due to rallies in the poll-bound state. The court adjourned the hearing to November 4, two days before Bihar goes to the polls.

Seeking dismissal of pleas challenging the June 24 decision of the poll panel to conduct the Bihar SIR, the EC said the petitioners had “ulterior motives” and were merely content with making “false allegations” to discredit the SIR exercise, the final electoral roll and the EC for the electoral interests of political parties.

The poll panel, in its affidavit, further said that barring the appointment of booth-level agents (BLAs), the political parties and public-spirited individuals and organisations had made no substantial contribution in ensuring that all eligible electors were included in the final electoral roll.

“The approach of the political parties and the petitioners has been to accuse the ECI and attempt to point out errors in the SIR exercise. In contrast, the ECI not only appointed more than 90,000 BLOs, but also involved political parties and got BLAs appointed.

“The exercise was conducted on an H2H (house-to-house) basis involving more than one visit. All relevant data was uploaded on the websites,” it said. The poll panel said this court also enlisted the assistance of the State Legal Services Authority, yet the number of objections and correction applications was minimal.

“This indicates that the SIR exercise was accurate. Even after the determination of the objections and deletion of approximately 3.66 lakh individuals from the final electoral roll, no appeal has been reported as of now,” it said.