The Supreme Court on Tuesday directed the Election Commission of India to provide details of 3.66 lakh voters excluded from Bihar’s final electoral roll following the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise, along with the names of the 21 lakh voters included.
A bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi said the poll panel will submit whatever information it gets on excluded voters by Thursday (October 9), when it will conduct further hearing on the pleas challenging the SIR exercise.
The bench expressed concern over confusion regarding whether the voters added to the final electoral list were previously deleted from the draft or entirely new entries. To this, ECI told the court that most names added under the Bihar SIR are of new voters, with only a few old voters.
The top court said everyone has the draft electoral roll and the final list has also been published on September 30, so the required data can be furnished through a comparative analysis.
Justice Bagchi told senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi, appearing for the poll panel, that court orders have resulted in more transparency and access to the electoral process.
The bench said that since it appears from the number of electors in the final list that there is an appreciation of numbers from the draft rolls, therefore, to avoid any confusion, the identity of add-ons should be disclosed.
"You'd agree with us that the degree of transparency and access has improved in the electoral process. It appears from the data that there was a 65 lakh deletion in the draft list which you published, and we said whoever is dead or moved is alright, but if you are deleting someone, please follow Rule 21 and the SOP," the bench observed.
"We also said that whoever is deleted, please put up their data in your electoral offices. Now the final list appears to be an appreciation of numbers and there is confusion in the general democratic process -- what is the identity of the add-ons, are they of deleted names or new names," Justice Bagchi said.
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday asked the Bihar State Legal Service Authority (BSLSA) to issue necessary directions to its district-level body for assisting voters excluded from the final electoral rolls in filing appeals with the Election Commission and deferred the hearing on the batch of pleas challenging Bihar SIR exercise to October 16.
The top court's two-judge bench, headed by Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi, on Thursday clarified that the question of considering the appeals by voters excluded after the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise will be considered on the next date of hearing on October 16.
The top court said that regardless of outcome of these proceedings.. one issue that has arisen is right to appeal for the 3.7 lakh who have been excluded.
"Though ECI has taken a stand on each such person, why they have been excluded. Petitioners oppose this. We request the executive chairman of Bihar Legal Services Authority to send a communication to all the secretaries in local authorities to provide free legal aid counsel to help the excluded ones to file their appeals," said the bench of the top court.
It further added that let each village have a list of BLO and the numbers of the para-legal volunteers who will help in filing these appeals. The officers shall also provide facilities to draft the appeals and counsels from the panel to file such appeals. "State legal service authority shall collate all info and submit status report to court within one week and question of deciding appeals within the timeline shall be considered on the next date of hearing," it stated.
During the hearing, Prashant Bhushan, for one of the petitioners, ADR, said that the ECI used to give the final electoral roll in 6 formats earlier. Technology has increased and the capacity of ECI to use it has also increased. Now when 3.6 lakh are excluded, that list of excluded is also not given.
"Why is the ECI shying away from giving the list and the list in a machine readable format. What is the angle of privacy here. Everyone wants a clean voter list. The list should be analysable. That can only happen if it's machine readable," added Bhushan.
Supporting the submissions of Bhushan, one of the petitioners, Yogendra Yadav, said, SIR exercise led to the largest shrinkage of electoral roll of 47 lakh voters. He added that an expert group formed by the central government estimated an adult population of eight crore 22 lakhs in September 2025, but when the SIR began, the roll had 7.89 lakh voters only.
Justice Bagchi told senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi, appearing for the poll panel, that court orders have resulted in more transparency and access to the electoral process.
Dwivedi replied that most additions of names are of new voters and there were a few old voters, whose names were added after the draft roll was published. "No complaint or appeal filed till now by any excluded voters," Dwivedi said.
On September 30, the EC, while publishing the final electoral list of the poll-bound Bihar, said that the total number of electors has come down by nearly 47 lakh; from 7.89 crore before the SIR of the voter list, to 7.42 crore after.
The final figure has, however, increased by 17.87 lakh: from 7.24 crore electors named in the draft list issued on August 1, which had removed 65 lakh voters from the original list on various accounts, including deaths, migration and duplication of voters.
Bihar’s Magadh division saw the highest number of new voters added, while the Muslim-dominated Seemanchal region reported the highest number of deletions in the final voter list.
On October 6, announcing the poll schedule, the EC said elections will be held in 121 seats of the 243-member Assembly on November 6, while the remaining 122 constituencies will go to polls on November 11.
The counting of votes will be held on November 14.
The top court is currently seized of a batch of 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.
On August 22, the SC directed the EC to allow the 65 lakh excluded voters to submit their claims through online mode, besides making physical submissions in the SIR exercise of electoral roll in poll-bound Bihar.
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 court also impleaded all the political parties in the batch of pleas challenging the EC's drive launched on June 24 for Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls in Bihar.
On July 28, the Supreme Court in its order refused to stay the EC 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 in considering including Aadhaar and Voter ID cards for including their statutory correctness.
