NEW DELHI: In an important direction while hearing the pleas challenging the Bihar SIR (Special Intensive Revision) exercise, the Supreme Court on Thursday directed the Election Commission of India (ECI) to accept Aadhaar card as an acceptable document for establishing identity.
So far, the top court has only suggested that the Commission complete the process to consider the inclusion of Aadhaar and Voter ID cards for ensuring voters' statutory correctness in the process. But on Thursday, the direction of the apex court--directing the EC to accept Aadhaar as an acceptable document for establishing identity--assumes significance in the case, as many voters have alleged that their Aadhaar cards have not been taken into consideration while the Commission carried out the SIR exercise.
A two-judge bench of the top court headed by Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi, while hearing a batch of petitions challenging the constitutional validity of Bihar SIR exercise, also directed the EC to publish the district-wise lists of approximately 65 lakh voters proposed to be deleted, with the reasons, from the draft electoral rolls during the SIR drive in Bihar.
"The transparency is needed about 65 lakh deleted voters to enable people to seek clarification or correction," clarified the top court.
The bench directed the EC to publish the detailed lists to be hosted on the websites of District Electoral Officers and the Chief Electoral Officer of Bihar.
"It must specify the reasons for deletion, such as death, migration, or double registration and be searchable by EPIC numbers," the top court said.
It also directed the EC to go for public notices and must clearly state that individuals excluded from the rolls may submit their Aadhaar cards when filing claims for inclusion in the final list.
The ECI must ensure wide publicity of this information in National newspapers (print), television, and social media, the apex court said and asked the Commission to obtain a compliance report from all the booth-level and district-level officers and file a compliance report by Tuesday.
It also clarified and asked the EC to consider that those aggrieved electors of Bihar whose names were not included could file their objections by applying with a copy of their Aadhaar card.
Directing that all these steps should be implemented by next Tuesday, the apex court fixed the matter for further hearing on August 22.
Senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi, for EC, argued that the Commission will contest everything on reasonableness and rationality. "We will not assume the High pedestal that we are omnipotent and we can do everything. We contend that ECI has enough reservoirs of powers under Article 324, section 15 and both 21(1) and (2) to take certain decisions.
Before passing the directions, the court wanted to know from the EC how many were in the summary list of 2025 and how many were omitted in the draft list. To this, the EC replied that the figures were 7.89 crores and 65 lakhs, respectively.
Dwivedi also made it clear to the SC that we have given the bifurcation that 22 lakhs were dead. 6.24 crores will not be required to give any documents at all.
Dwivedi also pointed out and said, the EC have not deleted anybody. We have asked for the documents. If the electoral roll is being revised. The EPIC card will either be updated or excluded.
The top court was hearing the pleas filed by NGO- 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.
