SIR: ECI assures SC That Claims And Objections To Bihar Voter List Will Be Accepted Beyond Sept 1 Deadline

By Sambhav Sharma 

New Delhi: The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Monday assured the Supreme Court that all claims and objections to Bihar’s draft voter list to be submitted until the last date of nominations will be considered and integrated into the final electoral roll.  The top court bench of Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi was hearing pleas filed by political parties, including the RJD and CPI(M) seeking a two-week extension of the deadline.

Senior Advocate Prashant Bhushan said that some genuine voters’ names were wrongly deleted from the draft rolls. He said that they could lose their right to vote if the deadline was not extended. He also urged the Court to allow Aadhaar to be widely accepted as proof of identity.

The bench directed petitioners to bring specific examples of Aadhaar-related rejections beyond the 65 lakh excluded names by September 8. The Court noted concerns of transparency and a ‘trust deficit’ between political parties and the ECI. It ordered the Bihar Legal Services Authority to deploy paralegal volunteers across districts. These volunteers will assist voters and parties in filing online claims, objections, and corrections, and submit confidential reports to district judges, which will then be collated at the state level.

The ECI, represented by Senior Advocate Rakesh Dwivedi, told the Court that 99.5% of Bihar’s 7.24 crore voters had already submitted documents, and most applications received so far were for deletions, often due to death or duplication, rather than inclusions. Dwivedi cautioned that extending deadlines would disrupt the schedule and turn the process into ‘an unending exercise.’ He bench expressed concern over the low number of objections filed by political parties despite sufficient time being given. 

The Court recorded that while more than 1.34 lakh applications were filed for deletions, only 33,351 sought inclusion, and parties had submitted just 120 objections. This development provides some relief to voters left out of the draft rolls, as claims and objections can still be filed despite the deadline.

Also read: Digitisation Without Inclusion Risks ‘New Face Of Inequality’: Justice Surya Kant