New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday termed the controversy over the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar as \u201cprimarily a trust deficit issue\u201d after the Election Commission of India (ECI) said that out of 7.9 crore voters, around 6.5 crore were not required to file any documents for themselves or their parents included in the 2003 electoral roll.<\/p>\n
A bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi is hearing multiple petitions challenging the ECI\u2019s June 24 SIR order, which petitioners claim would deprive nearly one crore voters of their voting rights.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf out of 7.9 crore voters, 7.24 crore responded to SIR, it breaks the principle of one crore voters missing or deprived of votes,\u201d the bench told senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for petitioner and RJD leader Manoj Jha.<\/p>\n
The court also supported the ECI\u2019s decision not to accept Aadhaar or voter cards as conclusive proof of citizenship, saying such claims should be backed by other documents.<\/p>\n
Sibal argued that despite residents possessing Aadhaar, ration and EPIC cards, officials were refusing to accept them. To this, the bench asked, \u201cIs it your contention that those who do not have any documents but are residing in Bihar should be treated as voters? This may be allowed, but he will have to submit certain documents.\u201d<\/p>\n
When Sibal pointed out that many residents were struggling to produce birth certificates or their parents\u2019 records, Justice Kant remarked, \u201cIt is a very clear statement that no one in Bihar has documents. If this happens in Bihar, what will happen in other parts of the country?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday termed the controversy over the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar as \u201cprimarily a trust deficit issue\u201d after the Election Commission of India (ECI) said that out of 7.9 crore voters, around 6.5 crore were not required to file any documents for themselves or their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":6558,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,37,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest","category-national","category-political-news"],"yoast_head":"\n