Saying “there is a confusion”, the Supreme Court (SC) on Tuesday asked the Election Commission of India (ECI) to provide details of 3.66 lakh voters who were part of the draft voter list but were excluded from the final electoral roll prepared after Bihar’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise. Noting that there were 65 lakh deletions when the draft list was prepared but names were added in the final list, the court asked whether the add-ons are “deleted names or new names”.
The poll panel informed the court that most of the names added in the final list after the publication of the draft list on August 30 were of new voters and that no complaint or appeal has been filed till now by any excluded voter.
A Bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi passed the directions after some petitioners, including political leaders from Opposition parties like the RJD, the Congress and the CPI (M), said that the ECI has not given any notice or reasons to the deleted voters for their exclusion from the final electoral list.
The Bench said the ECI will submit whatever information it gets on excluded voters by October 9, when it will hold the next hearing on these pleas.
The SC said everyone has the draft electoral roll and the final list has also been published on September 30, so the required data can be furnished through a comparative analysis.
“You’d agree with us that the degree of transparency and access has improved in the electoral process,” Justice Bagchi told senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi, who appeared for the poll panel.
“We also said that whoever is deleted, please put up their data in your electoral offices. Now the final list appears to be an appreciation of numbers, and there is confusion in the general democratic process — what is the identity of the add-ons, are they of deleted names or new names. You have the draft and the final list. Just cull out these details and give us the information,” Justice Bagchi added.