The Supreme Court on Tuesday referred to the Bihar special intensive revision (SIR) row to be one of largely trust deficit matter because the Election Commission of India (ECI) had argued only approximately 6.5 crore citizens out of the 7.9 crore voting population did not need to submit any documents since they or their parents were part of the electoral roll in 2003. A batch of petitions is being heard in the top court in opposition of the Election Commission electoral roll revision exercise in Bihar.
The hearing in this case by a bench led by Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi observed that it is basically a matter of trust deficit as it was taken to task the petitioners challenging the EC over its decision of June 24 to hold the SIR because it would disenfranchise one crore voters.
This would mean that 7.24 crore voters voted in the SIR out of 7.9 crore voters and this shatters the theory that 1 crore voters are missing or disenfranchised, which was argued by….
The apex court also concurred with the EC ruling that it would not accept Aadhaar and elector cards as definitive evidence of citizenship in the process that it is taking and has to be substantiated by other records. Sibal argued that even though the residents possessed Aadhaar, ration and Epics cards, governance authorities rejected those documents.
Is your view that those who lack documents yet are in Bihar hence he should be counted as a voter of the state. That may be permitted. He must produce or present few documents (sic) before the bench can grant the bail, the bench added.
When Sibal told the court about people having trouble in locating birth certificates and other documents of their parents, Justice Kant retorted: “It is a very broad statement that in Bihar nobody has the documents. Suppose it occurs in Bihar, what will be in other parts of the country?”
Senior advocate Abhishek Singhvi who was representing various political parties, asked about the schedule to complete the exercise and information of 65 lakh voters of which they were declared dead or migrated or registered in different constituencies.
Political activist Yogendra Yadav, who appeared in person before the court, criticised the information provided by the poll panel and stated that it had a total adult population of 8.18 crore and the SIR exercise was to eliminate the voters.
Yadav described it as a situation of total disenfranchisement saying: “They (EC) could not locate anyone whose name was added and the booth level officers went door to door to delete names”.
Sibal in the hearing claimed that in one constituency when the poll panel said that there were 12 people declared dead they were reportedly found alive and another time when people were alive they were declared dead.
Appearing for the poll panel, senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi said the process of this nature was bound to have faults here and there at the draft stage and that it was always possible to point out that dead persons were declared as alive and alive as dead could be corrected because it was a draft roll.
The bench at the inception of the hearing advised the ECI to be prepared with facts and figures as it is going to be interrogated on the number of voters once the exercise started; the amount of dead ones then and present in addition to other pertinent information. Hearing would be resumed on Wednesday.
Terming the election commission as a constitutional body that is expected to act within the confines of law, the top court on July 29, said it will intervene and act on the spot should there be a case of mass exclusion in the SIR in Bihar cz electoral rolls.
On August 1, the roll in draft form was published and final roll is set to be published on September 30 amidst opposition allegations that the current exercise will deny crores of eligible citizens their rights to vote.
The top court on July 10 told the election panel to look into the use of Aadhaar, voter identification and ration card as acceptable papers since it would enable the poll panel to carry on with its work in Bihar.
In defending its continued SIR of electoral rolls in Bihar, the EC has argued that it contributes to purity of the election, by eliminating ineligible persons, through the electoral rolls.
The Congress K C Venugopal and Supriya Sule of Nationalist Congress Party, a part of the Sharad Pawar group, D Raja of Communist Party of India, Harinder Singh Malik of Samajwadi Party, Arvind Sawant of Shiv Sena ( Uddhav Thackeray), Sarfraz Ahmed of Jharkhand Mukti Morcha and Dipankar Bhattacharya of CPI (ML) are also among the co- petitioners including RJD MP Jha and Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra.
Some other civil society bodies such as the PUCL, NGO Association of Democratic Reforms and activists such as Yogendra yadav have also approached the top court against the EC order.
“Bihar Voter Roll Revision Can Be Set Aside If…”: Supreme Court
The court had stated that they only need to identify … there cannot be a system which questions citizenship of five crore. It is assumed that they are lawful citizens unless they (i.e. the government) take them out. The EC was never to be a policeman of citizenship.”
To this Justice Surya Kant replied that considering that citizenship is the prerogative of the government, the EC had the mandate to exclude non-citizens, but not his citizens, directly by being left out of electoral rolls.
“Yes! I am liable to a stoppage (on the list of voters) till I get citizenship (in case I am not one). But what about this… I am on the electoral roll already…. then how can the EC know?” Mr Singhvi responded.
At this moment the court commented, “Then, they decide five crore invalid: we are here.”
Although it cannot be termed as judgment on the controversial re-verification of close to eight crore voters by the Election Commission a few months ahead of an election, the comments are a huge welcome to the opposition leaders and activists who had questioned the constitutional foundation and the legality of the exercise.
It is also a shot in the arm to an opposition that – headed by Rahul Gandhi and his PowerPoint presentations – has alleged that the EC has colluded with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party to perpetrate voter fraud in Karnataka and Maharashtra last year and attempting to do so in Bihar this year.
The opposition has cried, loudly, that the special intensive revison of lists of voters in Bihar is simply a screen behind which lakhs of communities side are being disenfranchised whose members, claim the opposition, traditionally vote with the Congress or friends.
Just as clamorously, the Election Commission has defied any allegation of collusion with the BJP, maintaining the stricture that the special intensive revision is aimed at cleaning up the roll by eliminating undeserving votes; this would be those who are dead or do not any more live in Bihar, and those who turn up more than once.
It has also given a spirited retort, time and again and forcefully to the PowerPoint presentations and the charges by Rahul Gandhi and asked evidence and an affidavit of the complaint by the Congress MP.
BJP too has fought back. Last week at a rally in Bihar, Home Minister Amit Shah ridiculed the claims made by the Congress and Rahul Gandhi, terming them a pre-premature rationale to tumble in November.
More than 65 lakh people including a large number of those of Nepal, Myanmar and Bangladesh who have managed to be included in India electoral roll is off the list, the EC said earlier.
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