New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday refused to stop the Election Commission of India (ECI) from proceeding with the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar, where assembly elections are due.

A bench of Justices Sudhanshu Dhulia and Joymalya Bagchi asked the poll body to consider Aadhaar, voter ID and ration cards for the purpose of updating the rolls but left it to the discretion of the ECI whether to accept or reject them.

The Bench said this after Senior Advocate Rakesh Dwivedi, appearing for the ECI, submitted that the list of 11 documents to be considered for the revision exercise is not exhaustive. The court directed that the matter be listed for hearing again on July 28, before the draft roll is published. Intensive revision refers to the de novo preparation of the electoral roll from scratch through personal, house-to-house field verification by electoral registration officers.

Under the Bihar SIR, those who were on the 2003 electoral rolls need only submit an extract from it as proof, while others (enrolled after 2003) must provide one or more documents from a list of 11 (along with a pre-filled enumeration form for existing electors) to establish their date and/or place of birth – which, in turn, is used to determine citizenship.