New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday asked the Election Commission of India (ECI) to explain which documents were accepted during the 2003 intensive
voter list update in Bihar. A bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi was hearing petitions against the ECI’s June 24 decision to conduct a Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls in Bihar ahead of elections.
Why is 2003 in focus?
The court’s question came after advocate Nizam Pasha pointed out that the ECI is using January 1, 2003 as a key reference date. He said the court had reportedly remarked, "if the date of January 1, 2003 goes then everything goes."
Pasha argued there was no reason for using that date. "I must submit that nothing was there to show why this date is there… The impression sought to be conveyed is that it is the earlier date when the intensive exercise for revision of the electoral roll was held. It is stated that the EPIC (voter) card issued then is more reliable than issued during summary exercises conducted from time to time, is incorrect," he said.
He questioned why voter ID cards issued during later, regular (“summary”) updates could be rejected if the registration process was the same. Pasha called the 2003 date invalid and not based on "intelligible differentia."
Pasha also raised concerns about how forms are handled. "No receipt of my enumeration form is being given or any documents acknowledging the receipt is given and therefore the booth level officers have an upper hand and these lower level officers have too much discretion on whether the form has to be taken or not," he said.
Objections to the new process
Senior advocate Shoeb Alam, representing another petitioner, said the method mentioned in the ECI notification was neither a proper “summary” nor “intensive” revision. "This is a process of voter registration and cannot be a process of disqualification. This is a process to welcome and not turn this into a process to unwelcome," he said.
SC’s observations so far
On August 13, the Supreme Court noted that voter lists must be updated and cannot remain "static". It said the ECI’s decision to increase the list of acceptable identity documents from seven to eleven for Bihar’s SIR was actually "voter-friendly and not exclusionary."
The bench added that the Election Commission had the legal authority to carry out such revisions. It also disagreed with claims that the SIR had no legal basis and should be scrapped.
Opposition parties including the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), Congress, and the NGO Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR) have filed petitions against the voter list revision, calling it unfair.
(With input from PTI)
