The Supreme Court on Friday has agreed to hear a petition filed by the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) seeking an extension of the deadline for filing claims and objections in the ongoing electoral roll revision in Bihar. The court has listed the matter for September 1, the same day the current deadline expires.
A bench led by Justice Surya Kant agreed to the urgent mention by advocate Prashant Bhushan and senior counsel Shoeb Alam. When asked by the court whether the Rashtriya Janata Dal had first made its request to the Election Commission of India (ECI), Bhushan confirmed that a representation had been made but had not been heeded.
In its application, the RJD is asking the court to extend the deadline by two weeks, until September 15, citing a sharp increase in applications from excluded voters. The plea states, “Unless extended, genuine electors whose names have been erroneously deleted by the EC will not be able to submit their claims and consequently will be barred from exercising their right to vote in the coming elections.”
Along with RJD, AIMIM has also moved the SC, seeking extension of September 1 deadline for filing claims, objections in Bihar SIR.
The party’s application, filed by advocate Fauzia Shakil, argues that the ECI's own manual prohibits suo motu deletions in an election year and that a truncated timeline could affect "the purity of electoral rolls." The Rashtriya Janata Dal further alleges that despite the court’s August 22 order clarifying that Aadhaar alone would suffice as proof of identity, several electoral officers were still insisting on one of the 11 documents listed in the ECI’s June 24 notification. The party has therefore also sought directions for the ECI to publicise the court's August 22 order and to ensure that claims submitted with Aadhaar are accepted.
This latest development follows the Supreme Court's warning to political parties in Bihar a week earlier for their "inaction" in assisting voters whose names were deleted during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR). The figures suggest that nearly 6.5 million voters were left out from the draft rolls.
On August 22, the bench, which also included Justice Joymalya Bagchi, noted that despite appointing over 160,000 booth-level agents (BLAs), political parties had only filed two objections. To make the process more voter-friendly, the court had clarified that claims could be submitted with Aadhaar and that physical filing was not mandatory. The court had also asked the ECI to consider uploading objections online to increase transparency.
The ECI, in a compliance affidavit, had stated that it had published booth-wise lists of all 6.5 million excluded voters on the websites of Bihar's 38 district election officers and the chief electoral officer, as well as in panchayat offices and with booth-level officers (BLOs).
The controversy over the SIR has escalated into a major political issue ahead of the Bihar assembly elections. Opposition parties in the INDIA bloc have accused the ECI of seeking to disenfranchise millions of voters, while the ECI has defended the revision, saying Bihar’s rolls had not undergone intensive updating in nearly two decades. An ECI representative stated in court that it would be more constructive for parties to help genuine voters rather than staging demonstrations.
Also read: 99.11% electors comply with Bihar SIR, ECI readies final rolls
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