Publish On Website List Of Voters Omitted In Bihar SIR With Reasons; Specify Aadhaar Card Can Be Submitted: Supreme Court Directs ECI

The Supreme Court on Thursday (August 14) directed the Election Commission of India to publish on the websites of the District Electoral Officers the district-wise list of approximately 65 lakh voters who have been omitted from the draft electoral roll published after the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) drive in Bihar. The Court also stated that the reasons for deletion, such as death, migration, double-registration etc, should be specified.This information should also be displayed on the website of the Chief Electoral Officer of Bihar. The documents should be searchable based on EPIC numbers.Apart from that, the Court also directed the Election Commission to specify in public notices that the excluded persons, at the time of submitting their claims for inclusion in the final list, can also furnish their Aadhaar cards. Wide publicity should be given through newspapers, electronic and social media that the list will be published on website.The ECI has been directed to take these steps by next Tuesday.A bench comprising Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi passed the directions in petitions challenging the Bihar SIR. The bench posted the matters for further hearing on next Friday (August 22).The Association for Democratic Reforms, one of the petitioners in the case, had filed an application seeking the publication of the list of omitted voters with reasons, which the ECI opposed saying that there is no legal mandate to do so.Disclosure will boost voters' confidence : SC to ECIDisclosing the list as well as the reasons will improve "voter confidence" in the institution, the bench observed. When Senior Advocate Rakesh Dwivedi, for the Election Commission of India, submitted that the booth-level lists of omitted voters have already been shared with the Booth Level Agents of the political parties, the bench asked why the voters should be compelled to go after political parties to know their status."Can't you have a mechanism where they do not have to run after local political party?Why don't you do it on internet also?" Justice Kant asked. When Dwivedi said that voters can know their status by entering their EPIC number on the site, the bench suggested that the list of excluded persons itself be uploaded."Why don't you put all deceased/migrated/duplicated elector names on website?" Justice Bagchi asked. "If you bring in public domain, the narrative (against the ECI) disappears," Justice Kant stated."We are not being critical of your not doing something...transparency will help create voter confidence. Why don't you take an additional step of putting it up on website, clearly identifying persons who are not there, with reasons, so that they can take remedial measures?," Justice Bagchi asked.Justice Kant said a "layman-friendly" public notice in the simplest language should be published stating that the list of deleted names can be found on the website and giving the name of the website. "If Poonam Devi has been omitted, Poonam Devi must be able to know that she has been deleted and why she has been deleted," Justice Kant said.Include Aadhaar also in the listThe bench also directed the ECI to specifically add Aadhaar Card also to its list of 11 documents which have been specified as acceptable documents, and give wide publicity that the Aadhaar card can also be furnished by voters. Although by the July 10 order the Supreme Court had directed the ECI to consider Aadhaar as well, since it is not included in the list of 11 documents specified by the ECI, voters may not be aware, the bench observed."Your list of 11 documents seems citizen-friendly, but Aadhaar and EPIC are readily available...your notice can say that those who have not submitted so far, they can submit their Aadhaar and EPIC also," Justice Bagchi said.Senior Advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan and Advocate Vrinda Grover submitted that the file must be uploaded in "searchable format". Accepting this submission, Justice Kant said, "it has to be searchable." Dwivedi opposed, relying on the 2018 judgment of the Supreme Court in Kamal Nath case, which held that the voter list need not be published in a searchable format. However, Justice Kant said that there was no problem in making the document searchable.DirectionsAfter the hearing, the bench dictated the following order :On suggestion by this court, the following steps have been agreed to by ECI, as interim measures -(i) The list of 65 lakhs (approximate) voters whose names appeared in the voter list as on 2025 but are not included in the draft list shall be displayed on the websites of every District Electoral Officers (district-wise). The information will be booth-wise but it can be accessed by EPIC number of the voter. It shall also disclose the reason of non-inlcusion in the draft roll(ii) With a view to make the public aware of the display of 65 lakh voters on the website of the District Electoral Officers, wide publicity shall be given in vernacular newspapers having wide circulation in...

Publish On Website List Of Voters Omitted In Bihar SIR With Reasons; Specify Aadhaar Card Can Be Submitted: Supreme Court Directs ECI

Debby Jain

The Court directed that the website lists must be searchable based on EPIC number of the voters.

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