The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the Election Commission to respond to allegations that there had been 3.36 lakh deletions from and 21 lakh additions to the final voter list after the special intensive revision of electoral rolls in poll-bound Bihar.

The petitioners have alleged that the inclusions and exclusions had been carried out without proper scrutiny. The main petitioner, the Association for Democratic Rights (ADR), has also alleged “disproportionate exclusion” of Muslim and women voters.

A bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi asked the EC to clarify whether the 21 lakh voters added to the final list included names from the list of 65 lakh voters who had been excluded from the draft rolls.

The court also sought a response from the EC on advocate Ashwini Upadhay’s plea that Aadhaar cannot be considered a valid document for inclusion in the rolls.

The bench posted the matter for further hearing to October 9. Bihar votes in two phases on November 6 and 11.

During Tuesday’s hearing, the court initially wondered how it could seek a reply from the EC on the inclusions and exclusions. The ADR has alleged that these actions were anomalous.

Advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for ADR, offered to produce before the court hundreds of voters who had been excluded. He, however, added that since such a move would not solve the problem, the court should seek an explanation from
the EC.

Senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi strongly rebutted the allegation and argued that the excluded voters had been given individual orders that would enable them to file an appeal against
their removal.

The bench observed it was not clear whether the 21 lakh voters were new “add-ons” or were from those among the 65 lakh voters who had been excluded from the draft rolls.