Bihar SIR: SC begins hearing pleas against Election Commission's drive

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday commenced hearing a batch of pleas challenging the Election Commission's decision to conduct special intensive revision (SIR) exercise in poll-bound Bihar.

A bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi began hearing senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for RJD leader Manoj Jha, arguing while in one constituency the poll panel claimed 12 people were dead, they were found alive whereas in another instance alive persons were declared dead.

Senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi, appearing for the poll panel, said the exercise of such a nature was "bound to have some defects here and there" and to claim that dead persons were declared alive and alive as dead could always be corrected as it was only a draft roll.

The bench told the poll panel to "be ready" with facts and figures for it would be question over the number of voters before the exercise commenced; number of dead before and now aside from other relevant details.

On July 29, terming the election commission a constitutional authority deemed to act in accordance with law, the top court said it will step in immediately if there is "mass exclusion" in the SIR of electoral rolls in Bihar.

The draft roll was published on August 1 and the final roll is scheduled to be published on September 30 amid opposition claims that the ongoing exercise will deprive crores of eligible citizens from their right to vote.

On July 10, the top court asked the EC to consider Aadhaar, voter ID and ration cards as valid documents as it allowed the poll panel to continue with its exercise in Bihar.

The EC affidavit has justified its ongoing SIR of electoral rolls in Bihar, saying it adds to the purity of the election by "weeding out ineligible persons" from the electoral rolls.

Beside RJD MP Jha and Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra, Congress' K C Venugopal, Supriya Sule from the Sharad Pawar NCP faction, D Raja from Communist Party of India, Harinder Singh Malik from Samajwadi Party, Arvind Sawant from Shiv Sena (Uddhav Thackeray), Sarfraz Ahmed from Jharkhand Mukti Morcha and Dipankar Bhattacharya of CPI (ML) have jointly moved the top court challenging the June 24 decision of the election commission.

Several other civil society organisations like PUCL, NGO Association of Democratic Reforms and activists like Yogendra Yadav have moved the top court against the EC order.