SC to hear on pleas against electoral rolls revision in Bihar on July 10

New Delhi, Jul 7 (IANS) The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear a clutch of petitions challenging the Election Commission’s decision to revise electoral rolls in poll-bound Bihar on July 10.

A Bench of Justices Sudhanshu Dhulia and Joymalya Bagchi agreed to hear the pleas against the ECI’s order directing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar after a battery of lawyers, including senior advocates Kapil Sibal, Abhishek Manu Singhvi, Gopal Sankaranarayanan and Shadan Farasat, mentioned the matter for urgent listing.

Several petitions have been filed before the top court claiming that if the June 26 order issued by the poll body directing SIR is not set aside, it can “arbitrarily” and “without due process” disenfranchise lakhs of voters from electing their representatives, and disrupt free and fair elections and democracy — a part of basic structure of the Constitution.

In her petition, Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP Mahua Moitra apprehended that such a second revision of the voters list could be replicated in West Bengal and demanded the Supreme Court to restrain the Election Commission from issuing similar orders for the SIR of electoral rolls in other states of the country.

Moitra, through her advocate Neha Rathi, contended that it is for the “very first time in the country” that such an exercise is being conducted by the poll body, where electors whose names are already there in electoral rolls and who have already voted multiple times in the past are being asked to prove their eligibility.

As per the plea, the SIR requirement asking voters to again prove their eligibility through a set of documents is “absurd”, since on the basis of their existing eligibility, most of them have already voted multiple times in the Assembly as well as general elections.

Amid the controversy, the Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar on Sunday remarked that all political representatives in Bihar shared a common opinion that electoral rolls are “not up to the mark”, thereby prompting the poll body to go for a major overhaul.

“During the past 4 months, all 4,123 EROs, all 775 DEOs and all 36 CEOs have held nearly 5,000 meetings with 28,000 political party representatives. ECI has also invited all Recognised political parties for interaction. No one was satisfied with the current status of electoral rolls for one reason or the other,” the CEC said.

IANS

--pds/mr