Bihar SIR | Claims Filed After September 1 Will Be Considered: Election Commission Tells Supreme Court
New Delhi: In a surprising note, the Election Commission has told the Supreme Court that claims and objections can be filed on the draft electoral rolls even after September 1, as part of the poll body's controversial Bihar special intensive revisions.
LiveLaw has reported that a bench of Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi therefore did not extend the September 1 deadline of filing claims and objections.
Reports of arbitrary removals, curious deletions and the withholding of information have come thick and fast ever since the exercise was announced.
Political parties had sought the extension of the deadline by two weeks.
The court was reported to have said: "As regards extension of time, note [submitted by the ECI] says that filing of claims/objections or corrections is not barred after 1 Sept. It is stated that the claims/objections/corrections can be submitted even after the deadline, ie after 1 September and same will be considered after roll has been finalized. The process will continue until the last date of nominations and all inclusions/exclusions are integrated in the final roll. In light of this stand, let the claims/objections/corrections be continued to be filed. Meanwhile, political parties/petitioners may submit their affidavits in response to the note."
The Supreme Court also requested the executive chairman of the Bihar State Legal Services Authority to issue instructions by noon of September 2, to all the District Legal Services Authorities to depute or notify para-legal volunteers, along with their names and mobile numbers, who can assist individual voters and political parties for the online submission of claims, objections or corrections.
Senior Advocate Rakesh Dwivedi, for the Election Commission of India, claimed that while political parties are filing objections seeking deletion of voters from the draft list, they were not making any claims for inclusion, which he called "very strange." Political parties have claimed that many of their requests on the draft rolls have not been registered. Today in court too, advocate Prashant Bhushan said that EC officials are not following their own manuals and advocate Nizam Pasha said that block-level officials had refused to accept forms.
Dwivedi said that 99.5% out of 7.24 crores voters have filed their forms, but that out of the 65 lakhs voters excluded from the draft, only 33,326 (individuals) and 25 claims (through parties) have been submitted for inclusion after August 22. He added that 1,34,738 objections have been filed for exclusion.
The Supreme Court had ordered the EC to allow the 65 lakh excluded voters to submit applications for their inclusion online. It had also asked the EC to accept the Aadhaar card.
As the election process comes under scrutiny, read The Wire's coverage of the Bihar SIR, opposition's allegations and more, here
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