The Supreme Court on Friday partially shifted to the political parties the responsibility of cross-checking the deletion of 65 lakh names from Bihar’s draft electoral rolls, while asking the Election Commission to accept Aadhaar cards for inclusion on the voter list.

It also said that claims, objections and fresh applications can be filed online. It was not clear by late evening whether the directive on Aadhaar cards was binding.

The court directed the booth-level agents (BLAs) of 12 major political parties in Bihar to assist the Election Commission (EC) in checking the correctness of the 65 lakh deletions — effectively pre-empting any future complaints from the parties about a faulty verification process.

Accepting the poll panel’s logic, the bench of Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi said that if each of the 1.6 lakh BLAs helped the commission verify even 10 deletions a day, there would be 16 lakh verifications per day.

Therefore, the verification of the 65 lakh deletions — on the grounds of death, multiple registration, migration and untraceability — would be over in four to five days, the court said.

The bench is hearing petitions that argue the special intensive revision (SIR) of Bihar’s voter list, which requires documentary proof of citizenship, is unconstitutional and would disenfranchise millions.

Aadhaar

The bench had earlier directed the commission to consider accepting Aadhaar, voter I-cards and ration cards as proof of citizenship along with the 11 other categories of documents the poll panel had prescribed for the SIR. The poll panel had demurred, arguing Aadhaar wasn’t proof of citizenship.

During Friday’s hearing, Justice Kant reiterated that the commission should accept the Aadhaar along with the 11 other documents.

Senior advocates Vrinda Grover and Gopal Sankaranarayanan, and advocate Prashant Bhushan complained that the poll panel was not accepting Aadhaar and insisting on additional supporting documents.

“Listen, let the (application) form be submitted only with Aadhaar,” Justice Surya Kant told senior counsel Rakesh Dwivedi, who appeared for the poll panel.

Dwivedi said Aadhaar was acceptable provided the applicant gave a declaration that the information was not false.

Online filing

The court clarified that those looking to have their names included in the voter list could apply online, and by furnishing Aadhaar or a matriculation certificate.

It recorded that with just 10 days left before the claims-and-objections deadline of September 1, some 85,000 objections had been received from individuals whose names had been deleted, and another 2.6 lakh from new voters left out of the draft rolls.

Parties

Dwivedi said that for all their allegations about the exclusion of genuine voters, the political parties with their 1.6 lakh BLAs had not filed a single objection.

(Sometime on Friday, the poll panel declared that two complaints had been accepted from the CPIML Liberation, a point the apex court noted in the order it dictated at the end of the day’s proceedings.)

Responding to the lack of claims and objections from political parties, Justice Kant said: “We are on the inaction of political parties now. What are the booth-level agents doing, then? Why is there so much distance between political workers and the local people?”

Political parties have accused the poll panel of not registering their claims and objections.

“We are surprised to see that 1.68 lakh BLAs have so far filed only two objections. On the other hand, some of the political parties say their BLAs are not being permitted to submit objections,” the court said, dictating the order.

“…To have better clarity and to ensure (voter rights)… all 12 political parties shall issue specific directions to party workers to assist in filing such forms with any 11 documents in Form 6 or Aadhaar card…. All political partiesare impleaded.

“Let the state electoral officer inform the state political parties about this order and they (political parties) need to be present in court and file status reports.

The court added: “BLOs (booth-level officers of the poll authorities) are directed to acknowledge receipt of such (online) forms. But such acknowledgment shall not mean completion of forms. ECI will consider the desirability of having such objections onthe website.”

Earlier, Dwivedi had informed the court that in keeping with its previous order, the commission had uploaded the 65 lakh deleted names along with the reason for each deletion.

He said that physical, booth-level lists of the 65 lakh excluded names had additionally been displayed at all police stations, BLO offices and panchayat offices in the state.

When the court asked whether any political party had impleaded itself in the matter, senior advocate Kapil Sibal said he was representing an RJD parliamentarian. Another senior counsel, Abhishek Manu Singhvi, saidhe was appearing for leaders of seven Opposition partiesin Bihar.

Bhushan, appearing for the Association for Democratic Rights, said many people could not file objections because of floods or work-related migration.

“But political parties and BLAs are local persons and in small villages people know each other. At least this information will be there as to who is a migrant, etc,” the bench said.