The Supreme Court on Friday asked the Election Commission of India (ECI) to accept 11 documents or an Aadhaar card for verification of voters, pointing out that the Bihar Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process must be "voter friendly."
The Election Commission had on Monday, August 18, published the names of 65 lakh people dropped from the draft electoral rolls during the SIR exercise.
"Online submission of deleted voter claims with Aadhaar card or any other valid documents will be permitted by us for Bihar SIR," the Supreme Court declared.
The top court also allowed excluded voters to file their claims online, besides physical filings. "…to issue specific directions to BLAs [booth level agents] to assist voters for submission of requisite forms alongwith any of the 11 documents OR Aadhaar card. In order to facilitate the voters, all above-mentioned political parties to be impleaded as respondents," LiveLaw quoted the Supreme Court's order on Friday.
The court was surprised at political parties' "inertia" not coming forward to rectify the names of the removed voters during the SIR exercise in election-going Bihar.
It observed the ECI noting that 85,000 new voters had already been enrolled through the SIR, with just two objections filed by the booth-level agents of political parties.
The controversy stems from the Election Commission's current SIR of electoral rolls in Bihar that has been criticized by opposition parties for removal of eligible voters purportedly without verification.
The opposition leaders contended that the SIR is biased since Aadhaar, which is a commonly held identification document, is not included among the 11 documents to be submitted for inclusion of names in the electoral rolls.
The Supreme Court had previously directed the EC to release the names that were deleted by August 19 and file a report on compliance by August 22.
As a compliance, the EC made public the rolls of 'ASD' (Absentee, Shifted, and Dead) voters at polling stations and on the internet, as ordered by the court. The ASD lists have been exhibited at polling stations in Rohtas, Begusarai, Arwal, Siwan, Bhojpur, Jehanabad, Lakhisarai, Banka, Darbhanga, Purnea, and others, according to the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of Bihar.
