The Election Commission informed the Supreme Court on Monday that it will continue to accept additional documents, claims and objections to the draft electoral rolls in Bihar even after the official September 1 deadline, Live Law reported.

The poll body informed the court that such submissions will be accepted before the electoral roll is finalised as part of the ongoing special intensive revision of electoral rolls in poll-bound Bihar.

Based on this submission, the bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi refrained from passing any order to extend the September 1 deadline, Live Law reported.

The court noted that “the process will continue until the last date of nominations and all inclusions/exclusions are integrated in the final roll,” and accordingly urged all political parties and petitioners to keep submitting affidavits in response to the Election Commission’s submission.

The court was hearing applications filed by the Rashtriya Janata Dal and All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen, seeking to extend the deadline by two weeks.

The court also observed that the confusion surrounding the voter roll revision exercise was largely due to a lack of trust. It directed the Bihar State Legal Services Authority to deploy para-legal volunteers across the state to assist voters and political parties in filing claims and objections, PTI reported.

During the hearing, advocate Rakesh Dwivedi, appearing on behalf of the poll body, said that 99.5% of the 7.24 crore electors listed in the draft roll had already submitted their eligibility documents, Live Law reported.

The poll panel emphasised that the voter roll revision is a “continuing exercise” and said voters with incomplete documents would receive notices within seven days. It also noted that most claims and objections submitted so far have been related to the exclusion of names rather than inclusion, PTI reported.

On Saturday, the Election Commission had said it had received 1.97 lakh objections seeking deletion of names and 29,872 applications for inclusion.

The draft voter list published on August 1 showed that 65.6 lakh names had been removed. Of these, 22 lakh were due to deaths, 36 lakh were of people who had permanently shifted or were untraceable and seven lakh were duplicate entries.

Bihar voter roll revision

The revision of the electoral rolls in Bihar was announced by the Election Commission on June 24, ahead of the Assembly elections in Bihar scheduled to be held in October-November.

As part of the exercise, persons whose names were not on the 2003 voter list needed to submit proof of eligibility to vote.

Voters born before July 1, 1987, were required to show proof of their date and place of birth, while those born between July 1, 1987, and December 2, 2004, had to also submit documents establishing the date and place of birth of one of their parents.

Those born after December 2, 2004, needed proof of date of birth for themselves and both parents.

The draft voter list that was published on August 1 comprises electors who submitted their enumeration forms to the poll panel between June 24 and July 26.

The final list is due to be published on September 30.

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