New Delhi: Bihar's district-level legal services authorities must inform people left off the final electoral rolls produced under the special intensive revision (SIR) of their right to appeal as well as help them draft and file their appeals, the Supreme Court ordered on Thursday (October 9).

Continuing its hearing of petitions challenging the contentious SIR, the bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi said that legal services must provide this assistance both to those whose names were struck off the draft rolls published on August 1 as well as to those whose names did not make it to the draft rolls and who went on to unsuccessfully file claims for inclusion in the final rolls.

“Regardless of the outcome of the ongoing proceedings, one of the challenges that has arisen during these proceedings is how to ensure the right to appeal” of the roughly 3.66 lakh people whose names appeared in the draft rolls but were excluded from the final rolls, the bench said.

Although the Election Commission (EC) has said that no one was excluded without being served orders stating why they were being left off the rolls, the petitioners in the case have contested this, the bench noted.

Given that “the time to file an appeal is running short”, the court said it would ask the Bihar State Legal Services Authority to press into service its district offices to help aggrieved persons file their appeals for inclusion in time, the court said in its order.

It is to do this by ‘re-notifying’ the phone numbers and ‘full descriptions’ in all villages of paralegal volunteers, who in turn must contact those left off the draft rolls, inform them of their right to appeal and offer help drafting appeals against their exclusion.

“That apart, free legal aid counsels shall be provided from the approved panel, so that such appeals are filed within the limitation period,” the court directed.

These directions to legal services, it added, shall apply ‘mutatis mutandis’ or modified as necessary to those whose names did not make it to the draft lists and who unsuccessfully petitioned to have their names included in the final lists.

“The question of issuing appropriate directions to appellate authorities for deciding appeals within the timeline and by way of reasoned orders shall be considered on the next dates of hearing,” which will be October 16, the bench concluded its order by saying.

Meanwhile, the state legal services authority is to collate information of the appeal assistance drive and submit a status report to the court in a week's time.

Beginning in June, the EC embarked on the SIR citing ‘frequent migration’, ‘rapid urbanisation’, ‘non-reporting of deaths’ and the inclusion of ‘foreign illegal immigrants’ in Bihar's voter rolls among other reasons for carrying out the revision exercise.

Critics, including political parties and activists, had pointed to the exercise's short time frame and documentary requirements in arguing that there was a risk of disenfranchising a large number of genuine electors.

As per data published with the final rolls on September 30, Bihar's electorate shrunk by 5.95% or some 47 lakh names from when the SIR began to comprise 7.42 crore voters.

Those wishing to get their names added to the list were given time till ten days before the last day for filing election nominations to appeal their exclusion.

It is not known how many people the EC struck off the rolls because they were found to be undocumented immigrants. Petitioner Yogendra Yadav on Thursday argued for this information to be placed in the public domain, media reports said.

EC lawyer Rakesh Dwivedi pointed to an apparent discrepancy in data submitted by the Association for Democratic Reforms, a petitioner in the case, whereby a person who was said to have been struck off the draft rolls did not actually appear in those rolls.

“The said person should have disclosed correct information and we also do not appreciate this kind of thing,” Justice Kant said according to PTI.

He also told the EC that the Bihar SIR must have made the poll body “wiser” and that it is expected to ‘bring improvement’ with regard to its plans to conduct a similar exercise for the rest of India.

“You have decided to carry out an SIR on a pan-India basis. So, this experience [with Bihar] would have made you wiser now … The next time you introduce an SIR module, owing to what you experienced now, you would also bring some improvement,” The Hindu quoted the judge as saying.

Bihar will go to polls in two phases on November 6 and November 11 respectively. Votes will be counted on November 14.

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