New Delhi [India], July 7: The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear on July 10 a batch of petitions challenging the Election Commission of India’s (ECI) directive for a Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in poll-bound Bihar.
A bench of Justices Sudhanshu Dhulia and Joymalya Bagchi allowed the matter to be listed on Thursday and granted permission for petitioners to serve advance copies to the ECI. Senior advocates Kapil Sibal, Abhishek Manu Singhvi, Gopal Sankaranarayanan, and Shadan Farasat mentioned the case before the court, arguing that the ECI order threatens to disenfranchise long-time voters who fail to submit new documents.
The petitions—filed by RJD MP Manoj Jha, the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), activist Yogendra Yadav, Trinamool MP Mahua Moitra, and former Bihar MLA Mujahid Alam—seek to quash the ECI’s June 24 order requiring many voters in Bihar to prove their citizenship to remain on the rolls.
ADR’s petition argued that the ECI directive imposes new documentation requirements and wrongly shifts the burden of proof from the state to individual citizens. It also highlighted concerns over the exclusion of commonly held documents like Aadhaar and ration cards, warning this could disproportionately disenfranchise poor and marginalized voters, especially in rural areas.
The petitioners contended that if the order is not set aside, it could arbitrarily remove lakhs of voters from the electoral rolls, undermining free and fair elections—an essential part of India’s constitutional democracy.
RJD MP Manoj Jha alleged the move, carried out without consulting political parties, could lead to “aggressive and opaque revisions of electoral rolls disproportionately targeting Muslim, Dalit, and poor migrant communities,” suggesting these exclusions are not random but systematic.