New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday heard petitions challenging the Election Commission’s decision to conduct a special intensive revision (SIR) process in Bihar.
A bench of Justices Surya Kant and Jaymalya Bagchi began the hearing with arguments by senior advocate Kapil Sibal on behalf of RJD leader Manoj Jha. Sibal argued that in one constituency the Election Commission had claimed that 12 people were dead, but they were found alive, while in another case living people were declared dead.
Senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi, appearing for the Election Commission, said that it is natural to have some flaws in such a campaign. Claiming that dead people were declared alive and living people were declared dead can always be corrected, as it is only a draft list. The bench asked the Election Commission to be ready with facts and figures as the court would question the number of voters, number of dead and now and other relevant details before the process.
The draft list was published on August 1
Earlier on July 29, terming the Election Commission a constitutional authority, the apex court had said that if there is a large-scale deletion of names in the SIR of the voter list in Bihar, it would immediately intervene. The draft list was published on August 1 and the final list is scheduled to be published on September 30. The opposition claims that the ongoing process will deprive crores of eligible citizens of their franchise.
Who filed the petition?
Besides RJD MP Jha and Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra, Congress’ KC Venugopal, Sharad Pawar faction’s Supriya Sule, Communist Party of India’s D. Raja, Samajwadi Party’s Harinder Singh Malik, Shiv Sena (Uddhav Thackeray)’s Arvind Sawant, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha’s Sarfaraz Ahmed and CPI(ML)’s Dipankar Bhattacharya have jointly moved the apex court challenging the EC’s June 24 decision. Several other civil society organisations like PUCL, NGO Association of Democratic Reforms and activists like Yogendra Yadav have also moved the apex court against the EC’s order.