Supreme Court to hear pleas challenging ECs pan-India electoral roll revision on November 11

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear on 11 November a batch of pleas challenging the Election Commissions decision to conduct a pan-India Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. A bench comprising Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi said it would begin hearing the pleas from 11 November, after advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for the NGO Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), argued that the issue goes to the root of democracy. The bench observed that although several important matters are listed from 11 November onwards, it would try to adjust the schedule to accommodate the hearing of the SIR-related petitions. Bhushan said the urgency arises as the SIR exercise has already commenced in several states. The top court is already hearing petitions challenging the validity of the Election Commissions decision to conduct the SIR exercise in Bihar. On 16 October, the poll panel described the Bihar SIR as accurate and told the apex court that petitioner political parties and NGOs were merely making false allegations to discredit the exercise. The Election Commission further informed the court that not a single appeal had been filed by any voter against name deletions since the publication of the final electoral roll. It denied allegations made by the petitioners that there had been a disproportionate exclusion of Muslims from the final electoral roll of the state, prepared after the months-long SIR process. On 30 September, while publishing the final electoral list for poll-bound Bihar, the Election Commission said the total number of electors had decreased by nearly 47 lakh, from 7.89 crore before the SIR to 7.42 crore in the final roll. However, the final figure reflected an increase of 17.87 lakh from the 7.24 crore electors listed in the draft roll issued on 1 August, which had removed 65 lakh names on various grounds including deaths, migration, and duplication. In the updated list, 21.53 lakh new voters were added while 3.66 lakh names were removed, resulting in a net increase of 17.87 lakh. The first phase of elections in Bihar, covering 121 of the 243 assembly constituencies, concluded on Thursday. The remaining 122 constituencies will go to the polls on 11 November, with counting scheduled for 14 November.