SIR is the prerogative of ECI, our direction would be interference: SC

The apex court also asked the poll body to clarify whether the 2.1 million voters added to the final Bihar voter list after SIR were initially removed or are entirely new entries.

The Supreme Court (SC) on Tuesday stated that the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise conducted by the Election Commission of India (ECI) in poll-bound Bihar falls entirely under the commission’s authority, and any directions on it would amount to interference, reported India Today.

 

A bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi observed while hearing a batch of petitions challenging the Bihar SIR. During the hearing, the commission was asked to inform the bench when it plans to conduct the SIR in other states, the report added.

 

"Why do you want us to take over all functions? Conducting SIR is the prerogative and exclusive domain of the Election Commission. If we come in between, this would be interfering," said a bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi, as quoted by India Today.

 

 

This comes a day after the ECI announced the dates for the Bihar elections and stated that work is underway to launch the SIR of electoral rolls in all states. 

 

The bench also asked the poll body to clarify whether the 2.1 million voters added to the final Bihar voter list after SIR were initially removed or are entirely new entries.

 

The Election Commission's counsel, however, informed the court that most of the names added in the final list after the publication of the draft list on August 30 were of new voters and that no complaint or appeal has been filed till now by any excluded voter.

 

The bench further asked the commission to provide details of 366,000 voters excluded from the final electoral roll prepared after Bihar's SIR exercise. It also said that everyone has a right to appeal against their exclusion from the voters' list.

 

"If anyone can give us a list out of these 366,000 voters these are the people for whom orders have not been communicated. We’ll direct them [Election Commission of India] to communicate. Each individual has a right to appeal," the court said, as quoted by Bar and Bench.

 

It further posted the matter on October 9.