The Supreme Court’s directive to the Election Commission to be transparent on the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar is significant and welcome. The Court asked the EC to publish detailed district-wise lists of the 65 lakh voters whose names had been omitted from the draft electoral roll published on August 1. These lists must specify the precise reason for each deletion, be it death, migration, or duplication, and be both physically available at local administrative offices and searchable online. The Court mandated that news of these deletions be widely publicised in Bihar through both vernacular and English newspapers, as well as electronic and social media. Amid the confusion and apprehensions unleashed by the SIR exercise in Bihar, the Court’s intervention is reassuring.
The SC order recognises the complexity of the exercise, both in scale and due to its constricted timelines in the poll-bound state. At the same time, it sends a message that the EC’s conduct is being watched. For Bihar’s migrant workers, Dalits, small farmers, daily wagers and poor, the demand for relatively difficult to procure documents from those who do not feature in the 2003 electoral roll, is an onerous one. As this newspaper has highlighted in a series of ground reports, the shifting of the burden of proof on to the vulnerable voter in what has morphed into a citizenship test has sparked widespread fears of disenfranchisement. The EC’s refusal to accept the Court’s suggestion to consider Aadhaar, Voter ID and ration card as proof underlines the challenge. But the Court’s insistence on full transparency on the deletions in the face of the EC’s resistance is heartening.
The SC has not stayed or stopped the SIR process in Bihar, recognising the EC’s constitutional mandate and authority, but it has instituted a check: “The powers (to do so) are prima facie traceable, so we do not wish to interdict… but your manner has to be reasonable, has to give certain comfort to citizens. Should not strain a person to become eligible,” it said. Article 324 of the Constitution gives the EC the powers of superintendence, direction and control of elections. However, it cannot hide behind that Article and those powers and view transparency as an inconvenience. The EC’s conduct of the SIR in Bihar sets a template — the exercise will be conducted across states. Going ahead, the SC’s intervention draws some much-needed red lines.
