The Supreme Court on Thursday directed the Bihar State Legal Services Authority to ensure that free legal aid for filing appeals is provided to all voters excluded from the electoral roll following a special intensive revision of the list, Live Law reported.

A bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi urged the authority to issue directions in this regard to all District Legal Services Authorities on Thursday itself, “since time to file appeals is running short”.

The bench said that the order will apply to even those voters whose names were not in the draft list.

At least 47 lakh voters in Bihar were excluded from the final electoral roll published by the Election Commission on September 30. The draft rolls were published on August 1 and kept open for “claims and objections” by individuals and political parties until September 1.

As many as 7.2 crore electors were listed in the draft rolls, while 65.6 lakh names were removed from it.

The court passed the order on Thursday after it found discrepancies in the affidavits filed before it by persons who claimed to have been wrongfully excluded, Bar and Bench reported.

The matter will be heard next on October 16.

The court has been hearing a batch of petitions against the revision of the electoral rolls in Bihar, which was announced by the Election Commission on June 24. As part of the exercise, persons whose names were not on the 2003 voter list needed to submit proof of eligibility to vote.

Petitioners against the exercise had claimed that around 3.66 lakh voters, whose names were deleted after the publication of the draft electoral roll, were unable to file appeals because the Election Commission had not formally notified them.

Disclose number of ‘foreginers’ deleted: Yogendra Yadav

During the hearing on Thursday, activist Yogendra Yadav urged the Supreme Court to direct the Election Commission to disclose how many persons were found to be “foreigners” during the special intensive revision and deleted from the rolls, Live Law reported.

Yadav also questioned the veracity of the final list, claiming that several names were “gibberish” and asked why the poll body had not used any software to ensure that there was no duplication.

“There are 4.21 lakh cases of wrong house numbers and 5.24 lakh duplicate names,” he claimed. “In some cases, there are 3,000 more names in the final list than in the draft.”

Revision of voter rolls

The revision of the electoral rolls in Bihar was announced by the Election Commission on June 24.

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

Several petitioners had moved the Supreme Court against the exercise. Earlier this month, the court directed the Election Commission to accept Aadhaar cards as a valid identity proof for the ongoing special intensive revision.

The Aadhaar card was not among the 11 documents that the poll panel had said could be submitted as proof of citizenship. Several petitioners had objected to the exclusion of Aadhaar, the most widely held ID, from the list of permissible documents, calling it “absurd”.

The court had earlier said that the entire exercise could be set aside if it was found to be illegal.

The Election Commission has defended the voter roll revision as a clean-up exercise to remove names of the deceased, duplicate entries and undocumented migrants ahead of the elections.

A Scroll analysis of the data published by the Election Commission on August 1 showed that women made up 55% of voters who were excluded from Bihar’s draft voter list after the revision.

It also showed that five of the state’s 10 districts with the largest share of Muslim population had the highest number of excluded voters.

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