During the hearing petitioners urged the court to direct Election Commission to publish names of those left out of the final electoral rolls.

The Supreme Court on Thursday (October 16) adjourned the hearing on pleas challenging the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the voter rolls in Bihar to November 4, just two days before the assembly elections in the state. While petitioners urged the court to direct the Election Commission to publish the list of names of those excluded from the final electoral rolls published last month, the court said that it has “no doubt that they (Election Commission) will fulfill their responsibility”.

“We have no doubt that they will fulfill their responsibility…they are bound to publish…we are not closing the matter,” Justice Surya Kant who along with Justice Joymalya Bagchi was hearing the pleas was quoted as saying by LiveLaw.

During the hearing, lead petitioner Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) counsel Prashant Bhushan urged the court to direct the Election Commission to publish the names of the 3.66 lakh people who have been left out of the final roll.

“They have not disclosed the complete list of new deletions of electors on draft rolls but not on final rolls…what are the new deletions not disclosed…tomorrow and 20th they will freeze the final roll…unfortunately, they have not been putting out the final roll on their website. That needs to be done immediately,” he said.

On behalf of the Election Commission, senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi said that the poll body is in the process of finalising the list as the last date of filing nominations is October 17 for the first phase and October 20 for the second, and the list will be frozen before that.

“Till tomorrow is the time, how can you say we will not put out?,” Dwivedi was quoted as saying by Bar and Bench.

At the end of the three-month long contentious SIR exercise the final electoral roll published on SIR saw about 47 lakh net deletions. The draft list published on August 1 had 7.24 crore electors, with 65 lakh voters left off from it. Another 3.66 lakh ineligible voters were removed from the draft list and 21.53 lakh eligible voters were added through Form 6.

In the previous hearing, the court said that legal services must provide this assistance both to those whose names were struck off the draft rolls published on August 1 as well as to those whose names did not make it to the final rolls and who went on to unsuccessfully file claims for inclusion in the final rolls.

Bihar will go to polls in two phases on November 6 and November 11, respectively. Votes will be counted on November 14.