11 docs in Bihar SIR compared to 7 in summary revision shows it is voter friendly: SC

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday said the 11 documents required to be submitted by an elector for Bihar's special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral roll as opposed to seven documents in summary revision conducted previously showed the exercise was "voter friendly".

A bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi, which resumed hearing on a batch of pleas challenging the June 24 decision of Election Commission to conduct SIR in poll bound Bihar, said despite petitioners' arguments that non-acceptance of Aadhaar was exclusionary, it appeared the large number of documents was "actually inclusionary".

"The number of documents in summary revision conducted earlier in the state was seven and in SIR it is 11, which shows it is voter friendly. We understand your arguments that non-acceptance of Aadhaar is exclusionary but a high number of documents is actually inclusionary," the bench said.

The top court noted electors were required to submit any one of the 11 documents in the list.

Senior advocate Abhishek Singhvi, appearing for the petitioners, disagreed and submitted the number of documents may be high but they had the least coverage.

Giving an example of passport availability with the electors, Singhvi said it was only one to two per cent in Bihar and they have no provision for permanent resident certificates given in the state.

"If we see the availability of documents with the population in Bihar it can be seen the coverage is very low," he said.

The bench said the coverage of 36 lakh of passport holders in the state appears to be good.

"The list of documents is prepared normally after taking feedback from various government departments to ensure maximum coverage," Justice Bagchi pointed out.

On August 12, the top court said inclusion and exclusion of citizens or non-citizens from the electoral rolls was within the remit of the Election Commission and backed its stand to not accept Aadhaar and voter cards as conclusive proof of citizenship in the SIR of voters' list in Bihar.

As the row over the ongoing SIR escalated inside and outside Parliament, the top court also observed that the dispute was "largely a trust deficit issue” since the Election Commission(EC) has claimed that roughly 6.5 crore people of the total 7.9 crore voting population in poll-bound Bihar didn't have to file any documents for them or their parents featured in the 2003 electoral rolls.