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Informist, Wednesday, Aug. 6, 2025

 

NEW DELHI – The Supreme Court on Wednesday sought the Election Commission of India's response on an application by the Association for Democratic Reforms, seeking directions to the poll panel to publish the name and details of around 6.5 million electors left out of the draft electoral rolls in Bihar. "Give a list of political parties who were supplied with it (the details of removed electors). We will hear the case on Aug. 12. File your reply by then," said the bench of Justices Surya Kant, Ujjal Bhuyan, and N.K. Singh.

 

The petitioner, a non-government organisation, has asked the apex court to direct the poll panel to publish the assembly constituency and part or booth-wise list of names and details, including reasons such as deceased, permanently shifted, duplicate or untraceable, of the around 6.5 million electors removed from the draft roll published on Aug. 1. The petitioner argued that the election commission has not specified whether the omitted voters are dead or have migrated. Advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for the petitioner, contended that political parties were not shared with the lists at the block level and that there was no clarity whether the inclusions or omissions were with the recommendations of the Booth Level Officers. 

 

The top court was hearing a petition by the non-government organisation the Association for Democratic Reforms, Rashtriya Janata Dal Member of Parliament Manoj Jha, human rights group The People's Union for Civil Liberties, activist Yogendra Yadav, and All India Trinamool Congress Member of Parliament Mahua Moitra. The petitioners had contested the commission's directive to hold a special intensive revision of electoral rolls in Bihar. 

 

On Jul. 10, the top court had said there were three points of challenge in the petitions, which include the power of the poll panel to conduct a special intensive revision, the procedure adopted by it, and the timeline for conducting such a revision right before the Bihar assembly election, due November. Thereafter, the top court had asked the election commission to consider the statutory documents of Aadhaar card and voter identity card for the special intensive revision of electoral rolls in Bihar.

 

The petitioners said the revision was violative of Articles 14, 19, 21, 325, and 326 of the Constitution as well as provisions of The Representation of the People Act, 1951, and Rule 21A of the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960. If the Election Commission's order is not set aside, it could arbitrarily and without due process disfranchise millions of voters from electing their representatives, thereby disrupting free and fair elections and democracy in the country, which are part of the basic structure of the Constitution, the petitioners said.  End

 

Reported by Surya Tripathi

Edited by Akul Nishant Akhoury

 

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