New Delhi: The Election Commission of India on October 7 told the Supreme Court that the final electoral list in the recently concluded Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in Bihar has been notified, and most of the names added to the final list are of new voters and few old voters.
A bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi said that there was some confusion as to whether the voters added in the final electoral list were from the list of voters who were previously deleted from the draft list or totally new names.
Advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for petitioner Association for Democratic Reforms, demanded that the poll panel must publish the list of names of 3.66 lakh voters who were additionally deleted from the final list and the names of the 21 lakh voters who were included in it.
He said ECI has not given the reasons for the deletion of the voters and has not published the list of the additional 3.66 lakh voters who were deleted after the publication of the draft list.
Senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi, representing the ECI, said that deleted persons have been given the orders.
He said none of the affected or deleted voters has approached the court or filed an appeal, and only politicians and NGOs sitting in Delhi are raising the issue.
To this, the bench said, “If anyone can give the list of voters out of these 3.66 lakh who have not received orders… we will direct EC to give them orders… everyone has the right to appeal.”
The top court has now posted the matter for hearing on Thursday.
The apex court was hearing a batch of petitions challenging the poll panel’s move to conduct SIR of electoral rolls in Bihar. (ANI)
