Supreme Court Calls Bihar Electoral Roll Revision a Trust Deficit Issue

A two-judge bench of Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi remarked it "largely appears to be a case of trust deficit, nothing else” as the Election Commission of India submitted that roughly 6.5 crore people of the total 7.9 crore voting population didn't have to file documents for them or their parents who featured in the 2003 electoral roll.

"If out of 7.9 crore voters, 7.24 crore voters responded to the SIR, it demolishes theory of one crore voters missing or disenfranchised," the bench told senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for petitioner and RJD leader Manoj Jha.

The top court also agreed with the EC decision to not accept Aadhaar and voter cards as conclusive proof of citizenship in the ongoing exercise and said it has to be supported by other documents. Sibal contended that despite residents holding Aadhaar, ration and electoral photo identity cards (EPIC) cards, officials refused to accept the documents.

"Is it your argument that people who have no documents but are in Bihar and therefore he should be considered as a voter of the state. That can be allowed. He has to show or submit some documents (sic)," the bench said.

On Sibal’s assertion that people were struggling to find birth certificates and other documents of their parents, Justice Kant said, "It is a very sweeping statement that in Bihar nobody has the documents. If this happens in Bihar, then what will happen in other parts of the country?"

Senior advocate Abhishek Singhvi and advocate Prashant Bhushan, who were representing different political parties, also questioned the timeline for the completion of the exercise and the data of 65 lakh voters who were declared as dead or migrated or registered in other constituencies.

Political activist Yogendra Yadav, who addressed the court in person, questioned the data given by the poll panel and said instead of 7.9 crore voters there was a total adult population of 8.18 crore and the design of SIR exercise was to delete the voters.

"They (EC) were not able to find any individual whose name was added and the booth level officers visited house to house for deletion of names," Mr Yadav said, calling it a case of "total disenfranchisement".

Sibal said while in one constituency, contrary to the poll panel's claims, 12 people declared dead were found alive, in another instance alive persons were declared dead.

Senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi, appearing for the poll panel, said the exercise of such a nature was "bound to have some defects here and there at the draft stage" and to claim dead persons were declared alive and alive as dead could always be corrected as it was only a draft roll.

The top court told the poll panel to "be ready" with facts and figures for it would be questioned over the number of voters before the exercise commenced, number of dead before and now besides other relevant details.