The Supreme Court on Monday asked the Election Commission to consider allowing Aadhaar cards as an additional document to establish a voter’s identity in the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar.
A bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi clarified that while Aadhaar may be accepted as the 12th prescribed document for identification, it cannot be treated as proof of citizenship. The court underlined that “only genuine citizens will be allowed to vote” and those attempting to establish their eligibility on the basis of forged documents will be excluded.
The bench also directed the poll panel to ascertain the genuineness of Aadhaar details submitted by voters, observing that “nobody wants the Election Commission to include illegal immigrants in the electoral roll.”
The court’s directions come amid a heated political debate around the SIR exercise in Bihar, the first such revision of the state’s electoral rolls since 2003. The exercise has already cut down the total number of registered voters from 7.9 crore to 7.24 crore, triggering opposition allegations that the process is designed to disenfranchise sections of the electorate.
The Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM), and other petitioners have sought extensions of deadlines for filing claims and objections. They argue that large numbers of voters are at risk of exclusion.
The EC has maintained that the revision is aimed at cleaning up the rolls by deleting names of deceased persons, duplicate entries, and those of illegal immigrants. It told the court that 99.5 per cent of Bihar’s 7.24 crore electors in the draft roll had already submitted eligibility documents.
Since August 22, the top court has been monitoring the SIR exercise through a batch of pleas filed by NGOs, activists, and political parties. It had earlier directed the EC to accept claims online as well as in physical form and asked the Bihar State Legal Services Authority to deploy paralegal volunteers to assist voters and political parties.
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On September 1, the poll panel informed the court that claims and objections could still be filed beyond the deadline but would only be considered after the electoral roll is finalised. It further said such claims could be made till the last date for filing nomination papers in each constituency.
So far, the EC has received over 22,000 claims for inclusion and more than 1.34 lakh objections for exclusion, underscoring the intensity of the verification process.
The final electoral roll for Bihar is scheduled to be published on September 30.
(With PTI inputs)
