Cyclostyled Notices Sent To 26 Lakh Persons During Bihar SIR : Prashant Bhushan Tells Supreme Court

In the challenge to the SIR Process, the petitioners today told the Supreme Court that during the Bihar SIR, the ECI issued 'cyclostyled' notices to 26 lakh people on proving their eligibility without giving them any reasons for the same. 

A bench comprising Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi was hearing a batch of pleas assailing the SIR initiated across several states.

Today, Advocate Prashant Bhushan, for the Association for Democratic Reforms, continued with his previous arguments on ECI not being transparent in its conduct. 

He stressed that the ECI's refusal to publish machine-readable data on the number of voters added or deleted from the final list aggravated the issue of transparency. He submitted that during the Bihar SIR, 3.5 lakh names were deleted from the draft electoral. However, between the time of publication of the final roll and the time of voting, they have added another 3.5 lakh names. 

Bhushan further stated that yesterday, a credible person from Bihar informed him that, although 3.66 lakh people were deleted due to objections, notices were issued to 26 lakh people. 

He claimed that these notices were 'cyclostyled', meaning that the same notices were issued to 26 lakh people without ascribing the reasons for suspecting their eligibility as a voter. He argued that issuing such notices without assigning reasons of doubt was against the decision in Lal Babu Hussein & Others vs Electoral Registration Officer

Bhushan flagged: " A cyclostyled notice saying that look, your documents are not adequate or your documents are not enough, and therefore you come and prove your case." 

"The point is, you are issuing cyclo-styled notice, without any reason, give them a reason- what are you doubting? My residence? My age?" He added 

Old Voters Made To Fill Declaration That They Are 'New Voters' Under Form 6 : Bhushan Argues 

Bhushan submitted that as per the official disclosure of the ECI, 65 lakh voters were deleted from the draft rolls in Bihar. This left the list with only 7 crore 24 lakh voters. Subsequently, in the final list, 21 lakh voters were further added through Form 6 (application for inclusion of name in electoral rolls), during the period of claims and objections. 

Bhushan highlighted that the issue with this is that for filling form 6, the persons whose names were deleted in draft rolls have to give a declaration that they are a new voter, despite the fact that they were present on the previous electoral rolls. 

"Unfortunately, they did not allow the 65 lakh people whose names were deleted to come through any other way but form 6. And Form 6 is a form for a new voter - where you have to declare that you are not on the electoral roll." 

He compared this process with the NRC registration, which was carried out in Assam, explaining : 

"Actually, they were on the electoral roll, so in order to fill form 6, they would have to file a false declaration that they were not on the electoral roll, whereas, just as in the CAA, they are saying that those who want to apply for the citizenship under the CAA, they have to file a declaration saying that they were citizens of Bangladesh or Pakistan and that they have come here due to religious prosecution etc." 

"Whereas, the vast majority of persons excluded in the Assam NRC were not citizens of Pakistan or Bangladesh, they were in fact mylords Indian Citizens who did not have the documents." 

On Duplication Of Entries In Bihar SIR 

Referring to Activist Yogender Yadav's rejoinder affidavit dated 29th November/ 1st October, Bhushan pointed out that when some people carried out de-depulication on their personal end of the Bihar rolls, it was found that in the draft rolls, there were 4.9 lakh duplicate entries within a single constituency. 

A total of 59 lakh duplicate entries were found across different constituencies in Bihar in the draft rolls. He argued that in the final rolls, the duplicate entries increased from 59 lakhs. 

On Bulk Electors & Homeless Voters 

Bhushan also claimed that in case of 'bulk electors', if an address has more than 10 voters living there, the ECI is required to send an officer to verify it personally. However, there are now instances where one single address has listed 500 voters alone. 

For those homeless persons who have been assigned 0 as their address, the number runs more than 5 lakhs, Bhushan added. 

In the final electoral rolls, the number of people coming under the 'bulk electors' category was in crores - "which should have been verified physically, by door-to-door verification" 

ECI's Claim Of Privacy Violation - A Bogus Argument: Bhushan Asserts 

Contesting the claim of the ECI that releasing the CCTV footage from polling booths or providing machine-readable electoral rolls would invade the voters' privacy, especially of women voters, Bhushan said that it was contrary to the Electoral Manual and guidelines of the ECI itself. 

He argued that ECI's constant reliance on the decision in Kamal Nath v. ECI was misplaced. Referring to paragraphs 24 and 25 of the decision, Bhushan pointed out that nowhere does the Supreme Court say that privacy concerns restrict the ECI from giving the data in a 'searchable'/machine-readable form; it only says that the Election Manual does not compel them to do so. 

Bhushan thus argued that while the election manual repeatedly ensures transparent methods, including disclosure of the voters' list, it's not reasonable for ECI to say that such disclosures would invade voters' privacy. 

"The ECI manual is again and again saying that we need to have this transparency, we need to give all this information to the political parties, we need to put all this information out to the citizens; therefore, how can you argue that just making it (data) machine-readable or searchable will invade privacy. That's an absolutely bogus argument" 

He added that ECI is not furnishing the list of names of voters added or deleted, and the reasons for such addition/ deletion. 

Bhushan concluded by saying that one of the most effective methods of carrying out the verification is through a 'social audit' by the BLOs. He explained that the BLO can do a social audit by meeting the gram sabha and conduct the survey by reading out the names. If no one responds to the name, it means so and so has moved out and needs to be deleted from the list. 

Sr Advocate Shoeb Alam also made brief arguments on the legality of ECI exercising its powers under S. 21(3) of ROPA. 

The bench will continue the hearings on December 9. 

 Case Details : ASSOCIATION FOR DEMOCRATIC REFORMS AND ORS. Versus ELECTION COMMISSION OF INDIA & connected matters