Publish list of 65 lakh deleted voter names with reasons: SC to EC

The EC agreed to publish the list of approximately 65 lakh voters whose names appear in the voter list of 2025 but are not included in the draft list following the Special Intensive Revision exercise in Bihar.

The bench said the list of deletions be made searchable and directed the EC to give wide publicity on its website. It asked the EC to file a status report by August 19 and said it would monitor the issue again on August 22, the next date of hearing.

Senior Advocate Rakesh Dwivedi, appearing for the EC, said the list, which has already been provided to Booth Level Agents of political parties, will now also be uploaded online with details as directed by the Supreme Court. He said the details regarding a voter can be found by searching it with the Electoral Photo Identity Card (EPIC) number.

The bench directed that the list be displayed on the website of every District Electoral Officer as well the Chief Electoral Officer of the state. The information will be booth-wise and can be accessed by referring to the EPIC number of the voter. The list will also disclose the reason for exclusion from the draft roll.

In addition, booth-wise lists of the excluded voters with reasons shall also be displayed on notice boards by each booth-level officer in respective panchayat bhavans/ block development offices, so as to enable the public to have access to them, the bench said.

It asked the EC to give wide publicity to the exercise through public notices in vernacular and English dailies with maximum circulation in Bihar, and be broadcast on Doordarshan and All India Radio. If the District Electoral Officer has a social media handle, the list will be displayed on it as well, the bench said.

It said the public notice must expressly mention that persons who do not have their names in the draft roll may submit their claims for inclusion in the final list along with their Aadhaar cards.

Justice Bagchi said, “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.”

In previous hearings, the court had said that an Aadhaar card is not proof of citizenship and the EC can verify its authenticity.

Fixing August 22 as the date for the next hearing on petitions challenging the SIR in Bihar, the bench asked the EC to obtain a compliance report from all booth level officers and submit a status report.

Dwivedi outlined the rising challenges faced by the ECand referred to how the poll body was hounded over the use of Electronic Voting Machines. But the Supreme Court, he said, upheld the Commission’s powers and rejected the prayer for a return to paper ballot. “Unfortunately, we are caught up in this struggle between political parties. If you win in one state, EVM is good, if you lose in another state, it is bad,” he said, adding that a similar perception is sought to be spread with regard to preparation of the voter list.

“I am not concerned with their perception, but with the legality of the exercise we have undertaken. About perception, we can’t do anything because democracy is such that political parties will have their own necessities of projecting a particular political perception in the society to win the election,” he said.

As Dwivedi dwelt on statistics, Justice Kant referred to the dispute raised by the petitioners over the number of those excluded. “You must have heard there is a serious dispute on dead/alive. What is the mechanism to know… so that the family can know our member has been included as dead in the list?”

Dwivedi said political party agents are associated at the booth level and have all the information.

Justice Kant said, “We don’t want citizens’ rights to be dependent on political party workers. Can’t you have a mechanism where they do not have to run after local political parties? Why don’t you do it on the Internet also? What is the mechanism to identify these dead persons?”

Dwivedi said, “We go door-to-door along with volunteers who are also appointed by the government, booth level agents of parties, we all go together and the information which is received is updated.”

Justice Bagchi asked “Why don’t you put all names on the website?”

Dwivedi said the draft roll and list of those left out was already on the EC website and names could be searched using the EPIC number.

Justice Kant said, “The question we are concerned about is: If 22 lakh people have been found to have died, why are their names not disclosed?”

Dwivedi said the EC is disclosing it at the booth level itself. “Not only the booth level officer, the booth level agent too,” he said.

Justice Bagchi said, “Why don’t you put up all the names on a display board or a website? That these are the persons deceased, these are the persons who have shifted and these are the duplications.”

Justice Kant said that bringing it into the public domain will help bring an end to the narrative against the EC.

Justice Bagchi said, “There is a departure (from the SOP for preparing the voter list) in a special circumstance. It is argued that departure… is not permissible in an election year. However, there is an exception which is a special circumstance, the special intensive review that you are undertaking… but that SOP also requires wide publicity to give the opportunity to persons to make an appeal… Taking these two together, the fundamental right to know why they are being deleted requires the widest possible publicity.”

Stating that “transparency will help create voter confidence,” Justice Bagchi asked, “Why don’t you take an additional step of putting it up on the website, clearly identifying persons who are not there, with reasons, so that they can take remedial measures?”

When Dwivedi said the list is already available on a website, Justice Bagchi said, “We have not seen it but what it seems is that it is not a disclosure of names in the form of a list. It is a tool or a programme where you put in a particular voter’s identity number and then the result comes out. Instead of creating data which is accessible through only an application, you can have an enumerative list like the draft list you have put out.”

He said “that list does not give transparency” and rules out the possibility of identifying and correcting inadvertent errors. “What you have done now is based on a query… It will be easier on the click of a button. They can scroll down with their number and get the reason.”