New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday backed the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter lists in Bihar. While hearing petitions on the issue, the top court said that the entire exercise was not “anti voters”.
A bench comprising Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi heard the petitions against the SIR in Bihar. Justice Bagchi said that the EC’s exercise is “voter friendly".
Supreme Court On Bihar SIR:
"The number of documents in summary revision conducted earlier in the state was seven and in SIR it is 11, which shows it is voter friendly. We understand your arguments that non-acceptance of Aadhaar is exclusionary but a high number of documents is actually inclusionary," the bench said.
The top court observed that electors are required to submit any one of the 11 documents in the EC's list. "If they ask for all 11 documents, it is anti-voter. But if any one document is asked for, then...," Justice Surya Kant said as quoted by NDTV.
Senior advocate Abhishek Singhvi, appeared for the petitioners. During the hearing, Singhvi disagreed and submitted the number of documents may be high but they had the least coverage.
Giving an example of passport availability with the electors, Singhvi said it was only one to two per cent in Bihar and they have no provision for permanent resident certificates given in the state, reported PTI.
"If we see the availability of documents with the population in Bihar it can be seen the coverage is very low," he said. Responding to Singhvi, the bench said the coverage of 36 lakh of passport holders in the state appears to be good.
"The list of documents is prepared normally after taking feedback from various government departments to ensure maximum coverage," Justice Bagchi pointed out.
Justice Surya Kant said that Bihar has maximum representation in All India services. "In terms of All India services, maximum representation is from this state. The maximum IAS, IPS, IFS (officers) are from there. This cannot happen if the younger population is not motivated,” he said as quoted by the NDTV.
What SC Said On August 12 Hearing?
On August 12, the Supreme Court said inclusion and exclusion of citizens or non-citizens from the electoral rolls was within the remit of the poll body. It also backed its stand to not accept Aadhaar and voter cards as conclusive proof of citizenship in the SIR of voters' list in Bihar.
Notably, the Opposition is targeting the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government at the Centre over the Bihar SIR. A protest march was also held on Tuesday by Opposition leaders, including Congress MPs Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, and TMC MP Mahua Moitra.
