SIR: Law says only local official can issue notice to electors; in Bihar, central EC sent pre-filled notices

Significantly, while the notices bore the names of the EROs, they had not been generated by them.

This departure matters because the law is clear. Under the Representation of the People Act, 1950, it is the ERO of the Assembly constituency, and only the ERO, who is empowered to doubt an elector’s eligibility and issue a notice calling for a hearing.

Indeed, Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar has also underlined this principle. At an August 17 press conference, describing electoral revision as a “decentralised construct”, Kumar said: “Neither I nor my fellow Election Commissioners nor any EC official or you can add or delete votes, except for following the legal process.”

It is against this statutory and institutional backdrop that the Bihar episode raised eyebrows among several EROs, many of whom are learnt to have chosen not to act on or pursue the notices.

A pre-filled notice issued by central EC in bIhar.

This episode did not translate into mass deletions. According to official data, of the 68.66 lakh deletions recorded during the Bihar revision, only 9,968 remain unexplained; the rest were attributed to death, migration, duplication or absence. Yet the manner in which the notices were generated and routed has raised questions about jurisdiction at a sensitive stage of the revision process: who is authorised to initiate scrutiny once documents have been submitted.

Five Bihar government officials involved in the exercise told The Indian Express, on condition of anonymity, that the notices began appearing on ERO log-ins in the days leading up to the September 25 deadline for disposal of claims and objections. The notices were meant to be signed by the ERO or Assistant ERO (AERO) and then delivered to electors through Booth Level Officers (BLOs). Two senior Election Commission officials separately confirmed this sequence.

The Indian Express travelled to many constituencies in Patna and Siwan to find several examples of such pre-filled notices. In a uniform, pre-filled Hindi format, they carry the elector’s name, EPIC number, Assembly constituency, booth number, serial number and address. Each notice asks the elector to appear before the ERO with documents to establish eligibility.

The notices cite instruction 5(b) of the detailed SIR guidelines issued on June 24, which states that “in case ERO/AERO doubts the eligibility of the proposed elector… he/she will start a suo motu inquiry and issue notice.” However, unlike an earlier notice format circulated to EROs, which left blank columns for officers to record reasons in their own hand, these notices arrived pre-populated.

They also carry no visible date of issue, though officials say the last eight digits of the serial number reflect the date of generation. For instance, “13092025” indicates September 13, 2025. All nine notices reviewed had a printed tick against the same second reason for doubt: that the documents submitted were “incomplete or deficient”.

The Indian Express sent a detailed questionnaire on December 12 to the Election Commission but no response was received. The Bihar Chief Electoral Officer was unavailable for comment.

EC officials said the notices were generated after identifying “logical errors” or “logical discrepancies” in submitted forms and documents. Electors had been asked to attach documents from a prescribed list of 11, or extracts from the 2003 electoral roll, the last time an intensive revision was conducted.

Among those who received a notice was RJD MLA Osama Shahab, an elector in Siwan’s Raghunathpur. His name was eventually retained. His BLO, Jay Shankar Prasad Chaurasiya, said the issue was “technical” and resolved after documents were resubmitted. “None of the notices given to me led to any deletions,” he said.

Another elector from the same booth, Tarik Anwar, said he was unsure why he was called despite having submitted documents. “When I went for the hearing, I was told my name was on the rolls,” he said.

In another Siwan booth, a BLO said he was given notices for six electors though their documents, including 2003 extracts, had already been uploaded. “The notices did not clearly mention the reason. I assumed there was a minor spelling mismatch,” he said, adding that several electors received notices barely two days before the scheduled hearing. Eventually, he said none of those names were deleted when the final roll was published on September 30.