The Supreme Court of India.
Credit: PTI File Photo
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to take up on July 10 a batch of petitions challenging validity of the Election Commission's decision to conduct a special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar, ahead of the Assembly polls in November, this year.
On behalf of the petitioners, senior advocate Kapil Sibal mentioned the matter before a bench of Justices Sudhanshu Dhulia and Joymalya Bagchi for urgent hearing.
The court decided to consider the matter on Thursday.
The court granted leave to file the petitions during partial court working days is granted, with liberty to serve an advance copy of the petitions to the appropriate authorities.
NGOs Association for Democratic Reforms, PUCL, TMC MP Mahua Moitra and RJD MP Manoj Kumar Jha and activist Yogendra Yadav, among others have filed separate petitions challenging the validity of the Election Commission's June 24, 2025 communication, in this regard.
Opposition parties also approached the Supreme Court challenging the ECI's electoral roll revision in Bihar. Meanwhile, KC Venugopal of Congress, Supriya Sule of NCP, D Raja of CPI, Harinder Malik of Samajwadi Party, Arvind Sawant of Shiv Sena UBT, Sarfraz Ahmed of JMM and Dipankar Bhattacharya of CPI(ML) also filed the plea in this regard.
The petitioners claimed the move was in violation of Articles 14, 19, 21, 325 and 326 of the Constitution as well as provisions of Representation of People’s Act, 1950 and Rule 21A of the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960.
They contended the SIR order, if not set aside, can arbitrarily and without due process "disenfranchise" lakhs of voters from electing their representatives, thereby disrupting free and fair elections and democracy in the country, which are part of basic structure of the Constitution.
"The documentation requirements of the directive, lack of due process as well as the unreasonably short timeline for the said special intensive revision of electoral roll in Bihar further make this exercise bound to result in removal of names of lakhs of genuine voters from electoral rolls leading to their disenfranchisement," they claimed.