Bihar SIR appears to be trust deficit issue: Top court
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday called the Bihar special intensive revision (SIR) row "largely a trust deficit issue” as the Election Commission of India (ECI) claimed roughly 6.5 crore people of the total 7.9 crore voting population didn't have to file any documents for them or their parents featured in the 2003 electoral roll.
The top court is hearing a batch of pleas against the Election Commission electoral roll revision exercise in Bihar.
A bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi during the hearing remarked it "largely appears to be a case of trust deficit, nothing else” as it questioned the petitioners challenging the EC’s June 24 decision of conducting the SIR on the ground that it would disenfranchise one crore voters.
"If out of 7.9 crore voters, 7.24 crore voters responded to the SIR, it demolishes theory of one crore voters missing or disenfranchised," the bench told senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for petitioner and RJD leader Manoj Jha.
The top court also agreed with the EC decision to not accept Aadhaar and voter cards as conclusive proof of citizenship in the ongoing exercise and said it has to be supported by other documents.
Sibal contended that despite residents holding Aadhaar, ration and EPIC cards, officials refused to accept the documents.
"Is it your argument that people who have no documents but are in Bihar and therefore he should be considered as a voter of the state. That can be allowed. He has to show or submit some documents (sic)," the bench said.
When Sibal said people were struggling to find birth certificates and other documents of their parents, Justice Kant said, "It is a very sweeping statement that in Bihar nobody has the documents. If this happens in Bihar, then what will happen in other parts of the country?"
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.
