Publish On Website List Of Voters Omitted In Bihar SIR With Reasons; Specify Aadhaar Card Can Be Submitted: Supreme Court Directs ECI

The Supreme Court on Thursday (August 14) directed the Election Commission of India to publish on the websites of the District Electoral Officers the district-wise list of approximately 65 lakh voters who have been omitted from the draft electoral roll published after the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) drive in Bihar. The Court also stated that the reasons for deletion, such as death, migration, double-registration etc, should be specified.

This information should also be displayed on the website of the Chief Electoral Officer of Bihar. The documents should be searchable based on EPIC numbers.

Apart from that, the Court also directed the Election Commission to specify in public notices that the excluded persons, at the time of submitting their claims for inclusion in the final list, can also furnish their Aadhaar cards. Wide publicity should be given through newspapers, electronic and social media that the list will be published on website.

The ECI has been directed to take these steps by next Tuesday.

A bench comprising Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi passed the directions in petitions challenging the Bihar SIR. The bench posted the matters for further hearing on next Friday (August 22).

The Association for Democratic Reforms, one of the petitioners in the case, had filed an application seeking the publication of the list of omitted voters with reasons, which the ECI opposed saying that there is no legal mandate to do so.

Disclosure will boost voters' confidence : SC to ECI

Disclosing the list as well as the reasons will improve "voter confidence" in the institution, the bench observed. When Senior Advocate Rakesh Dwivedi, for the Election Commission of India, submitted that the booth-level lists of omitted voters have already been shared with the Booth Level Agents of the political parties, the bench asked why the voters should be compelled to go after political parties to know their status.

"Can't you have a mechanism where they do not have to run after local political party?Why don't you do it on internet also?" Justice Kant asked. When Dwivedi said that voters can know their status by entering their EPIC number on the site, the bench suggested that the list of excluded persons itself be uploaded.

"Why don't you put all deceased/migrated/duplicated elector names on website?" Justice Bagchi asked. "If you bring in public domain, the narrative (against the ECI) disappears," Justice Kant stated.

"We are not being critical of your not doing something...transparency will help create voter confidence. Why don't you take an additional step of putting it up on website, clearly identifying persons who are not there, with reasons, so that they can take remedial measures?," Justice Bagchi asked.

Justice Kant said a "layman-friendly" public notice in the simplest language should be published stating that the list of deleted names can be found on the website and giving the name of the website. "If Poonam Devi has been omitted, Poonam Devi must be able to know that she has been deleted and why she has been deleted," Justice Kant said.

Include Aadhaar also in the list

The bench also directed the ECI to specifically add Aadhaar Card also to its list of 11 documents which have been specified as acceptable documents, and give wide publicity that the Aadhaar card can also be furnished by voters. Although by the July 10 order the Supreme Court had directed the ECI to consider Aadhaar as well, since it is not included in the list of 11 documents specified by the ECI, voters may not be aware, the bench observed.

"Your list of 11 documents seems citizen-friendly, but Aadhaar and EPIC are readily available...your notice can say that those who have not submitted so far, they can submit their Aadhaar and EPIC also," Justice Bagchi said.

Senior Advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan and Advocate Vrinda Grover submitted that the file must be uploaded in "searchable format". Accepting this submission, Justice Kant said, "it has to be searchable." Dwivedi opposed, relying on the 2018 judgment of the Supreme Court in Kamal Nath case, which held that the voter list need not be published in a searchable format. However, Justice Kant said that there was no problem in making the document searchable.

Directions

After the hearing, the bench dictated the following order :

On suggestion by this court, the following steps have been agreed to by ECI, as interim measures -

(i) The list of 65 lakhs (approximate) voters whose names appeared in the voter list as on 2025 but are not included in the draft list shall be displayed on the websites of every District Electoral Officers (district-wise). The information will be booth-wise but it can be accessed by EPIC number of the voter. It shall also disclose the reason of non-inlcusion in the draft roll

(ii) With a view to make the public aware of the display of 65 lakh voters on the website of the District Electoral Officers, wide publicity shall be given in vernacular newspapers having wide circulation in Bihar. It shall also be broadcast and telecast on TV and radio channels. If the District Electoral Officers have any official social media site, they will display the public notice on that site as well.

(iii) In addition, the booth-wise list of 65 lakh voters shall also be displayed on the notice board by each Booth Level Officer in their respective offices of the Block Development/Panchayat to enable the public to have manual access to the list along with the reasons for non-inclusion.

(iv) In the public notice, it shall also be expressly mentioned that the aggrieved persons may submit their claims along with a copy of the Aadhaar card. 

(v) The State Election Officers will also get the soft copy of the district-wise list of persons not included in the draft and will publish on the website of the Chief Electoral Officer, Bihar.

(vi) The website-lists will be EPIC-based searchable.

Earlier, Dwivedi argued that the Election Commission of India has a "wide reservoir of powers" to conduct the SIR as per Section 21(3) of the RP Act read with Article 324 of the Constitution.

In the forenoon session, the bench completed the hearing of the remaining lawyers from the petitioners' side - Senior Advocate Shoeb Alam, Advocates Nizam Pasha, Rashmi Singh, Fauzia Shakil, Vrinda Grover etc.

To recap, between August 12-13, the bench heard submissions (read here and here) on behalf of the petitioners, which were put forth by Senior Advocates Kapil Sibal (for RJD MP Manoj Kumar Jha), Dr Abhishek Manu Singhvi (for PUCL, etc.) and Gopal Sankaranarayanan (for ADR), Advocate Prashant Bhushan (for ADR), Advocate Vrinda Grover and political activist Yogendra Yadav. Today, it was slated to hear ECI's arguments against the petitioners' claims.

 Developments so far

On July 28, the Court refused to stop the ECI from publishing draft electoral rolls for Bihar on August 1. But, it orally told the ECI to atleast consider Aadhaar Card and EPIC. Justice Kant impressed upon ECI that instead of "en masse exclusion", there should be, "en masse inclusion".

On July 29, the Court was told that 65 lakh persons are likely to be excluded from the draft electoral rolls. In response, it orally said that if there is mass exclusion, it will step in.

On August 6 (after the draft list was published), ADR filed an application alleging that ECI had not disclosed details of the omitted 65 lakh voters. It further claimed that in case of some voters who were included in the list, the BLOs had 'not recommended' the names and reasons for exclusion were not made available. Thereafter, ECI filed an affidavit stating inter-alia that (i) it is not obligated under the applicable Rules to publish a separate list of persons who have not been included in the draft electoral roll, (ii) the Rules do not mandate it to furnish reasons for non-inclusion of any individual in the draft roll.

On August 12, the petitioners opened arguments, details of which can be read here. It was contended inter-alia that the Bihar SIR is illegal and the onus of proving citizenship cannot be shifted on voters/electors. A key aspect of the hearing was the production of two persons in Court, who were allegedly declared dead by the ECI in Bihar's draft rolls after SIR. The bench however was of the view that the same could be due to an 'inadvertent error', which could be rectified. 

On August 13, referring to Section 21(3) of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, the bench asked both sides whether ECI does not have residual power to conduct an exercise like Bihar SIR in a "manner it deemed fit". Insofar as the issue of West Bengal SIR initiation was raised, the bench said that the same will be dealt with later. Pursuant to an allegation that ECI deleted the searchability feature in draft electoral rolls published on its website, the bench asked both sides to inform whether the draft rolls were published in the Electoral Registration Office in compliance with the 1960 Rules.

For a detailed background, click here.

Case Title: ASSOCIATION FOR DEMOCRATIC REFORMS AND ORS. Versus ELECTION COMMISSION OF INDIA, W.P.(C) No. 640/2025 (and connected cases) 

Citation : 2025 LiveLaw (SC) 804

Click Here To Read/Download Order