'Exercise not the problem...': Supreme Court's big observation on Bihar voter list revision

The Supreme Court on Thursday said that there was logic and practicality behind the Election Commission's move to conduct Special Intensive Revision SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar. The top court, however, questioned the timing of the exercise. 

The top court's observation came after hearing a bunch of petitions that challenged the EC's decision. 

"What they are doing is a mandate under the Constitution. There is a practicality involved. They fixed the date because it was the first time after computerisation. So there is a logic," India Today quoted the SC bench as saying. 

The bench, comprising Justices Sudhanshu Dhulia and Joymalya Bagchi, said there was nothing wrong with cleaning the electoral rolls through SIR to see that non-citizens do not remain there. 

"Your (ECI) exercise is not the problem, it is the timing," the court said.

The EC ordered a revision of Bihar's electoral rolls, citing large-scale additions and deletions over 20 years as increasing duplicate entries. Opposition parties, including Congress and RJD, criticized the exercise as arbitrary and discriminatory.

"They are saying that before 2003 the presumption of citizenship is in your favour. However, after 2003, even if you have voted in five elections, it doesn't matter whether the presumption of citizenship is not in your favour," Advocate Sankaranarayan, appearing for the petitioners, said.

A major issue has been that Aadhaar and voter identity cards were not included in the list of 11 documents that the applicants can produce during the exercise. The top court questioned the poll panel on its decision to exclude the Aadhaar card from the list. 

To this, the Election Commission's counsel said that Aadhaar can't be used as a proof of citizenship. The court replied that it was a different issue and the prerogative of the Home Ministry, not the Election Commission. 

The counsel said that the court could have a look at the revised voter list before it is finalised and requested that the exercise should not be halted. 

"Let the revision exercise be completed. And then your lordships can look at the entire picture... We will show it before it is finalised" the ECI counsel said.