Supreme Court To Hear Petitions Challenging Bihar Electoral Roll Revision On July 10
The Supreme Court on Monday (July 7) agreed to urgently list the petitions challenging the Election Commission of India's decision to conduct a "Special Intensive Revision" of the electoral rolls in Bihar.
Senior Advocates Kapil Sibal, Dr Abhishek Manu Singhvi, Gopal Sankaranarayanan and Shadan Farasat jointly mentioned the matter before a partial working days bench comprising Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia and Justice Joymalya Bagchi, seeking urgent listing.
They submitted that voters who fail to submit the forms with the specified documents will face the harsh consequence of being deleted from the electoral roll, even if they have voted in elections for the last twenty years. "8 crore is the electorate and 4 crore have to do the enumeration," Singhvi submitted. "It is an impossible task," Sibal(for RJD) added. "They won't accept Aadhaar card, voter card," Sankaranarayanan said.
"The timeline is so strict, and by July 25 if you don't give, you will be out," Singhvi said. Justice Dhulia said that the timeline "doesn't have sanctity as elections have not been notified as yet."
The bench agreed to list the matter on Thursday. The bench allowed the parties to give advance notice of the petitions to the Election Commission of India.
So far, four pleas have been filed challenging the Election Commission of India's decision to hold a "Special Intensive Revision" of electoral rolls in Bihar. These include petitions filed by RJD MP Manoj Jha; the Association for Democratic Reforms, PUCL, activist Yogendra Yadav and Lok Sabha MP Mahua Moitra challenging the ECI decision.