Bihar SIR: The Supreme Court on Wednesday demanded a response from the Election Commission of India (ECI) to a plea seeking disclosure of details of the 65 lakh electors left out from the draft electoral rolls in poll-bound Bihar.
A Bench comprising Justices Surya Kant, Ujjal Bhuyan, and NK Singh passed the order after advocate Prashant Bhushan mentioned the application filed by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR).
Justice Kant-led Bench asked the ECI to place its reply on record after the poll body said that the information of deleted voters had already been shared with the booth-level representatives of political parties.
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“Give a list of political parties that were supplied with it. We will hear the case on August 12. File your reply by Saturday (August 9),” said the Supreme Court.
“We will ensure that every voter likely to be affected is informed and given an opportunity to comply with requirements. Political parties as well as the local administration must be in possession of the requisite information,” the apex court added.
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On August 1, ECI published the ‘draft electoral rolls’ in Bihar, enlisting 7.24 crore voters but knocking off more than 65 lakh names, claiming that most of the persons concerned had died or migrated.
As per EC, printed copies, district-wise are being made available to representatives of political parties so that anomalies could be flagged before the ‘final rolls’ are published.
The reasons cited by the EC for non-inclusion of previously registered voters in the draft rolls included death (22.34 lakh), “permanently shifted/absent” (36.28 lakh) and “already enrolled (at more than one places)” (7.01 lakh).
The EC affidavit in the apex court said that the SIR of electoral rolls in Bihar adds to the purity of the election by “weeding out ineligible persons” from the electoral rolls, PTI reported.
(With Agency Inputs)