On July 28, the Supreme Court in its order refused to stay the Election Commission from publishing draft voters list on August 1, 2025 after SIR exercise in Bihar. It also reiterated and asked the EC to complete the process of considering including Aadhaar and Voter ID cards to ensure their statutory correctness.Earlier on July 10, the apex court’s two-judge vacation bench, in its last order — while refusing to stay the Bihar voter list revision — asked the ECI to complete the process.”In our prima facie view, since the list is not exhaustive, in our opinion, it will be in the interest of justice, the ECI will also consider the Aadhaar card, Electoral Photo Identity Card issued by the Election Commission and the ration card,” the bench had said.The apex court on July 10 had passed the direction after hearing a batch of petitions challenging the decision of the ECI to undertake the SIR of electoral rolls in poll-bound Bihar.On Monday, July 21, the ECI had told the top court that 90% electors had already submitted enumeration forms. “Apart from ensuring no one is left out of the list, special focus on poor, marginalised etc is being given.The ECI also defended, in its affidavit, the Aadhar’s exclusion from the list of 11 documents, saying it doesn’t help in screening eligibility of voters under Art 326. It, however, maintained that the list of documents was indicative, not exhaustive.The ECI said the SIR Survey was being done after concerns were raised by the political parties across the spectrum”For the first time, all the political parties have been so involved at this scale in intensive revision exercises, with all political parties appointing more than 1.5 lakh BLAs to work in tandem with BLOs, in reaching out to each eligible elector,” added the affidavit of the ECI.The top court was hearing the pleas filed by NGO- Association For Democratic Reforms (ADR), People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), Yogendra Yadav, Lok Sabha Member of Parliament (MP) from Trinamool Congress Party, Mahua Moitra, Rashtriya Janta Dal (RJD) MP Manoj Jha, Congress Party leader K C Venugopal and Mujahid Alam.The petitioners from the top court sought a direction to set aside the ECI’s SIR order of 24, June, 2025.”Issue a writ, order or direction setting aside Order and Communication dated 24.06.2025 and accompanying guidelines issued by ECI to conduct SIR of the electoral rolls in Bihar as being in violation of Articles 14, 19, 21, 325, 326 of the Constitution of India and provisions of Representation of People (RP) Act, 1950 and Registration of Electors Rules, 1960,” said, the plea of ADR, filed in the top court.”The SIR order, if not set aside, can arbitrarily and without due process disenfranchise lakhs of voters from electing their representatives, thereby disrupting free and fair elections and democracy in the country, which are part of the basic structure of the Constitution,” said the NGO ADR, in its plea filed in the top court.
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