Bihar SIR : Live Updates From Supreme Court Hearing

Yadav: Even this 47 which has happened is actually a very deliberately reduced impact of SIR. Reason is you. When you started applying brakes, that's when EC started doing things. They were legally incorrect but in favor of people. When it was clear that large no. of forms will not come back...EC directed BLOs to ensure forms are filled. About 20% of forms were filled by BLOs without knowledge of voters. Otherwise we would be looking at a figure of 2 cr. EC thankfully controlled. There was forgery by BLOs!

J Kant (smiles): let's say there was pro-active support. Procedural lacuna you have pointed out will perhaps make them wiser, when conducting SIR in other states.

Yadav: There was a deficit of 27 lakhs people when SIR began, with one stroke it has reached 81 lakhs. Let them point out one election in the history where gap between adult population and voters was 81 lakhs!

Yadav: Bihar had a problem initially...more voters than adult population

J Bagchi: 105% is a crisis, not a problem

Yadav: In [...], 38 lakh more voters than the adult population. Problem has been cured after that [in 2023]. Patient has a BP problem. Problem is cured, next day you give shock treatment. Now he has low BP. That's what has happened in Bihar.

Yadav: Completeness, equity and accuracy are parameters [for voters' list]...SIR has led to largest ever shrinkage of electoral roll in the history of this country...total shrinkage is 47 lakhs. It's not that there were errors...we should ask what is the adult population of Bihar? Who should have been on the roll? In Sept, Bihar's adult population was 8 cr 22 lakhs. Total electoral roll should have been at that figure. Instead of moving towards that figure, SIR has brought us 47 lakhs below the 7 cr figure EC started with.

Bench allows Yogendra Yadav to make submissions

Yadav: This is not adversarial. I am on facts. There can't be 2 arguments that voter list needs improvement, that existing measures have not fully succeeded. Contention is not about EC rights. It's about the nature of revisions being suggested. What SIR has done is that it has weaponized a normal, benign process. 3 weapons - systemic exclusion, structural exclusion, and possibility of targeted exclusion.

Order: Aforesaid directions to State LSA shall apply even in case of persons whose names were not there in draft rolls.

Bhushan: We have been burning the midnight oil trying to get whatever information we can

Order: Regardless of outcome of these proceedings, one challenge that has arisen is to ensure right to appeal to those approx.3.70 lakh persons stated to have been excluded from final list. EC has taken stand that each such person has been served with order containing reasons for exclusion. This is opposed by petitioners. Since time to file appeals is running short, we deem it apt. as interim measure to request Executive Chairman, Bihar SLA to send communication preferably today itself to all secretaries of DLSAs to provide services of paralegal volunteers, free legal aid counsels to assist excluded persons to file statutory appeals. Secretaries to immediately re-notify mobile nos. and full description of paralegal volunteers in each village, who in turn will contact BLOs. They will collect info wrt persons who have been excluded from final list. PLVs would reach out to persons informing of right to appeal. They will offer services to draft appeals and free legal aid counsel. SLSA will collate information and submit status report to Court in 1 week.

J Kant: If timelines are not there, we can fix. If appeals are dismissed with one line cryptic order, that also is to be taken care of. We re-assure you on this

Bhushan: Please see the net result. EC used to give final electoral roll in many formats...this time, nothing like that done. Constituency-wise how many people excluded, they have not given. What percentage of people have EPIC card, etc. not given. Technology has increased and capacity of EC to use it has also increased enormously. They say 3.66 lakh voters have been deleted from final roll due to objections, that list not given. WHY IS EC SHYING AWAY FROM GIVING LISTS? WHY ARE LISTS NOT BEING GIVEN IN MACHINE READABLE FORMAT? They say privacy, what is the privacy in voters' list? Everybody is concerned with having clean voters' list.

Dwivedi: Somebody may feel Ramu is gibberish...Mr Bhushan may not be well-versed with villages...all this for newspapers...

Bhushan: They are not giving who has been removed from draft list...all technology they have...result is we have to spend 100s of hours going through everything and trying to find out one by one. Please allow Mr. Yadav 15 mins

Dwivedi: Let us file a response

Grover: Rolls will freeze on 17 Oct (last date for filing nominations)...scheme has no timeline for passing of order on appeal

J Kant: We will see to that

J Bagchi: Simple ground of appeal is order not supplied. Why have people not filed? Breach of principle of natural justice...let it be filed.

J Kant: while maintaining some fairness on our part, yesterday some affidavit is given to them...there is nothing wrong...but we need to give them time to verify

Bhushan: I want to show the massive deviation from their own rules/SOP. For example, nobody is to be required to file enumeration form. Earlier list will be treated as base list. That no document will be required to be given. Onus was on BLOs to go house-to-house, ascertain from head of family who lives there, and then give copy to the member...that was the rule...now what has been done...

J Kant: Now, with advent of technology, let's not think of 2003 procedure as...

Bhushan: If they had applied technology, bogus voters could have been easily excluded. There are lakhs of people who share the same names, there are 1000s of people whose names or fathers' names are gibberish (ABCD, etc.). They are not giving the citizens access to computerized data.