Supreme Court Warns Election Commission Over Bihar Voter List Revision, Flags Alleged Mass Exclusion

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday signaled that the Election Commission of India (ECI) must be ready with factual and numerical explanations over the ongoing voter list revision in Bihar, cautioning that any procedural lapses could have serious consequences.

The remarks came during the hearing of multiple petitions challenging the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in the poll-bound state. The exercise has drawn sharp criticism from opposition parties and civil society groups, with allegations of large-scale deletion of genuine voters and inclusion of bogus names.

Senior advocate Kapil Sibal argued that the revision process was fundamentally flawed, pointing to instances where living citizens were recorded as deceased, with booth-level officers allegedly failing to take corrective action. He stressed that “every person born after 1950 is a citizen of India” and warned that the integrity of the voter list was at stake.

Supporting these claims, senior advocate Gopal S. told the court that approximately 6.5 million names had been removed from Bihar’s electoral rolls — an action he described as a “case of mass exclusion.”

Representing the Election Commission, senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi countered that the current list was only a draft and that in a revision of this magnitude, minor errors were inevitable. He rejected claims that individuals marked as deceased were alive, calling such accusations misleading.

Justice Joymalya Bagchi, however, observed that if the preliminary steps before preparing the draft roll were not properly followed, “it becomes a serious matter.”

The Supreme Court had earlier, on July 29, reminded the ECI of its constitutional responsibility to act within the law and warned it would intervene immediately if there was evidence of large-scale disenfranchisement.

The draft voter roll was released on August 1, with the final list expected by September 30. Opposition leaders allege the process could rob millions of citizens of their voting rights ahead of the upcoming Bihar Assembly elections.

This legal battle stems from a June 24 decision by the ECI to proceed with the SIR in Bihar. A joint petition against the move has been filed by prominent political figures including RJD MP Jha, TMC MP Mahua Moitra, Congress leader K C Venugopal, Supriya Sule of the Sharad Pawar NCP faction, CPI leader D Raja, SP’s Harinder Singh Malik, Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Arvind Sawant, JMM’s Sarfraz Ahmed, and CPI(ML) leader Dipankar Bhattacharya.

Several civil society organisations — such as PUCL, the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), and activists including Yogendra Yadav — have also petitioned the court, arguing that the revision risks disenfranchising legitimate voters.

Earlier, on July 10, the apex court had directed the ECI to accept Aadhaar cards, voter ID cards, and ration cards as valid documents during the revision, allowing the exercise to continue but under closer scrutiny. The Commission has defended the process, insisting it is aimed at “weeding out ineligible persons” to improve electoral integrity.