The Supreme Court on Thursday directed that free legal aid be provided to all those whose names have been excluded from the final voter list of Bihar following the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the voter list by the Election Commission of India (ECI). The Court said that each of the 3.7 lakh affected persons should be provided access to legal counsel and para-legal volunteers to help them file appeals against their exclusion. A bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi was hearing petitions challenging the Election Commission’s June 24 direction to issue SIR in Bihar.
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The petitioners argued that names are being arbitrarily removed from the voter list without any adequate safeguards under the amendment process, thereby threatening to disenfranchise millions of citizens and impacting free and fair elections. However, the Election Commission defended the process, saying it had the legal right to make such amendments to ensure that only names of eligible citizens are included before the upcoming Bihar Assembly elections.
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During the earlier hearing, the court had sought details of 3.7 lakh voters whose names were removed in the amendment. It had also expressed concern over large-scale deletion of names and said that around 21 lakh voters were added to the final list after around 65 lakh names were removed from the draft list, but it was not clear whether the newly added names were of those removed earlier or those newly added.