'Trust deficit': SC on Bihar SIR showdown; what happened during the hearing

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday reiterated that it can set aside the results of the entire special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral bonds in poll-bound Bihar - in as late as September - if its illegality is established.

While hearing a bunch of petitions against poll body's exercise, a bench of justices Surya Kant and Joymala Bagchi said that logjam over the exercise is largely due the "trust deficit" between the poll body and the opposition.

Here is what happened during the hearing

• Senior advocate Kapil Sibal , appearing for RJD MP Manoj Jha, said that the exclusion of about 65 lakh voters from the draft electoral roll published on August 1 is illegal.
• However, the top court said that as per the rules, the persons excluded have to submit applications for inclusion, and it is only at this stage that anyone's objection will be considered.
• Sibal argued that most of the population of Bihar does not posses the documents specified by the ECI as acceptable. “Bihar people don't have these documents, that's the point.”
• Justice Kant said it was a “very sweeping argument” to suggest no one in Bihar possessed valid documents, noting Aadhaar and ration cards existed but could not be treated as definitive proof.
• “Bihar is part of India. If they don't have them, other states won't either,” the top court said. “There must be something to prove you are a citizen of India… everybody possesses some certificate - you need it even to buy a SIM. OBC, SC, ST certificates."
• Advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for Association for Democratic Reforms, said that the poll body not published a list of names of the 65 lakh persons who have been deleted from the draft roll. He also accused the EC of not specifying who are dead or migrated persons.
• "Today, what they have done is something mischievous. Till the 4th of August, the draft of the roll was searchable. After the 4th of August, the document is not searchable. They say, go and ask the Booth Level Agent of the political party. Why should I, as a citizen, not know from their document and should ask an agent of the political party?" Bhushan said.
• Meanwhile, appearing for the EC, senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi said an exercise of this nature was “bound to have some defects”, but errors could be corrected before the final roll is published on 30 September. Opposition leaders and civil society groups have petitioned against the EC’s June 24 decision.
• Senior Advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi said "You cannot start by presumptively doubting the citizenship of 5 crore of voters (who are in the post-2003 roll). The presumption is that they are citizens unless established otherwise through a procedure in accordance with the law....If you declare 5 crore people to be not valid and give them 2.5 months."
• Political activist Yogendra Yadav, who addressed the court in person, questioned the data given by the poll panel and said instead of 7.9 crore voters there was total adult population of 8.18 crore and the design of SIR exercise was to delete the voters. "They (EC) were not able to find any individual whose name was added and the booth level officers visited house to house for deletion of names," Yadav said, calling it a case of "total disenfranchisement".

The hearing will resume again on Wednesday.

On July 29, the top court warned it would step in immediately if there was “mass exclusion” of voters. The draft roll was published on August 1, with the final version due on September 30. Opposition parties claim the process could disenfranchise crores of eligible voters.

The pleas have been jointly filed by leaders from RJD, Trinamool Congress, Congress, NCP (Sharad Pawar), CPI, SP, Shiv Sena (Uddhav Thackeray), JMM, CPI (ML), along with PUCL, ADR and activist Yogendra Yadav, challenging the EC’s June 24 decis ion.