Bihar SIR Row SC Hearing Updates: The Supreme Court on Wednesday resumed the hearing on the batch of pleas challenging the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the Bihar electoral roll. A bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi began the hearing on pleas on Monday amid massive uproar by the opposition parties. The opposition has uestioned the timing of the SIR, given that Bihar will go to polls later this year, and alleged anomalies in the exercise.
Earlier on Tuesday, the Supreme Court observed that the opposition to the Bihar SIR was “largely a trust deficit issue” since the 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.
Bihar SIR Row SC Hearing Updates August 13:
– The top court, during hearing on Wednesday, said that there the option to present 11 documents shows that the Bihar SIR is “voter friendly”. The SC gave example of the previously conducted summary revision in which only seven documents were required to be submitted by an elector.
– The bench further said that despite petitioners’ arguments that non-acceptance of Aadhaar was exclusionary, it appeared the large number of documents was “actually inclusionary”. The top court noted electors were required to submit any one of the 11 documents in the list.
– “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.
– However, 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.