SC Directs EC to Reply on Bihar Voter Roll Exclusions

• The Supreme Court has directed the Election Commission (EC) to file a reply by August 9 to a petition regarding the exclusion of 65 lakh voters from the draft electoral rolls in Bihar.
• The application, filed by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), claims the EC’s list fails to provide a reason for each voter’s exclusion, preventing public verification.
• The petition alleges that the EC had the data on reasons for deletion but removed the corresponding column from the public list.

GG News Bureau
New Delhi, 7th Aug: The Supreme Court today directed the Election Commission of India (EC) to file a detailed reply by August 9 to a petition seeking the disclosure of specific details for the 65 lakh voters who were excluded from the draft electoral rolls in poll-bound Bihar.

The application, filed by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) through advocate Prashant Bhushan, claims the EC’s list of excluded voters is opaque, as it fails to provide a reason for each name’s removal. The petitioners argued that this “concealment” prevents the public and political parties from verifying if the deletions were legitimate, such as for reasons of death, permanent migration, or duplicate entry.

During the hearing, a bench led by Justice Surya Kant asked the EC to clarify whether an earlier version of the draft roll, which allegedly contained a column titled “Uncollectable Reason,” was shared with political parties before the public release on August 1. The bench also asked the EC to specify which parties received these lists.

The EC’s counsel stated that information about the deleted voters had already been shared with booth-level representatives of political parties. Justice Kant then instructed the poll body to place these details on the official record.

The petition also alleged that more than 75 per cent of voters who submitted enumeration forms during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process did not provide supporting documents. It claimed that their inclusion or exclusion was based solely on the recommendation of Booth Level Officers (BLOs), and requested details on electors marked as “not recommended by the BLOs.”

The Supreme Court will resume its hearing on the matter on August 12. The draft electoral roll was published on August 1, and the final roll is scheduled to be published on September 30.