The arguments of the petitioners were inconclusive on Wednesday and will continue on Thursday before the same bench. The court noted that despite the petitioners’ claims that non-acceptance of Aadhaar was exclusionary, the large number of documents appeared “actually inclusionary”.Prashant Bhushan, lawyer for one of the petitioners, alleged malafide intent on the part of the ECI. He opposed similar exercises previously by the Commission, which, he said, refused Aadhaar, ration cards, or EPIC as proof to publish names of deleted voters with reasons, and removed searchable draft rolls just one day after Rahul Gandhi’s press conference on Karnataka elections.Hearing this, the court refused to entertain his submissions, saying it was not aware of any such press conference.The top court was hearing the pleas filed by NGO-ADR, People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), Yogendra Yadav, Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra, Rashtriya Janata Dal MP Manoj Jha, Congress leader K C Venugopal and Mujahid Alam. The petitioners sought a direction to set aside the ECI’s SIR order of June 24, 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 the Representation of People (RP) Act, 1950 and Registration of Electors Rules, 1960,” the ADR plea stated.”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,” ADR argued.Defending the Bihar SIR exercise, the Election Commission of India (ECI), through senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi, said such an exercise was bound to have some defects at the draft stage.”To claim dead persons are declared alive and alive as dead could always be corrected as it was only a draft roll. This process can be rectified,” Dwivedi told the top court.Earlier, the ECI urged the SC to dismiss the batch of pleas in the Bihar SIR matter, clarifying that such electors would be afforded a reasonable opportunity of being heard and furnishing relevant documents.
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