Revision of Electoral Rolls in Bihar | Day 11: Court reiterates role of para-legal volunteers in assisting voters deleted from electoral rolls

ECI alleges perjury against an electors affidavit forwarded by ADR

During Monday’s hearing, the Court heard complaints about large-scale deletions in the rolls, prompting Justice Kant to direct petitioners to produce affidavits from affected voters. Dwivedi immediately pointed out that one such affidavit was false and “completely wrong.”

He referred to an individual who claimed to have been included in the draft SIR list and was later removed. Dwivedi argued that this information was false and his name was not in the draft roll as he had never submitted his enumeration form. Dwivedi further confirmed the lack of inclusion by referring to other material in the affidavit. He stated that the name of the applicant read, “Civil Court, Patna”. 

Dwivedi highlighted that the elector had attached a stamp paper to the affidavit bearing the date of 8 September 2025. He pointed out that the Court had directed the deployment of the para-legal volunteers on the same day. “He was aware of the order perhaps… he could have approached them and got his name entered”, he argued. He also pointed out that the applicant did not approach any political parties, booth level officers or booth level agents to seek help. 

Justice Kant agreed that the existence of such a person seemed doubtful. Dwivedi then sought a direction from the Court that electors could still file an appeal, stating that “there were still five days.” At this juncture, Bhushan requested the Court if he could make any submissions. Dwivedi pressed on, arguing that the “Democratic Reform Society represented by Mr. Bhushan was fully aware… they have everything with them.”

“This is perjury and they are misleading the Court!” Dwivedi thundered. Senior Advocate Vijay Hansaria joined Dwivedi and stated that the Court should not hear such a person. Dwivedi concluded by arguing that the ADR should verify the contents of such an affidavit “before throwing it on the Court.”

Bhushan: No transparency in the process

Bhushan suggested the Court direct the state legal service authorities to verify the contents of the affidavit. He submitted, “A responsible person gave it to me, therefore I handed it over,” noting he had received 20 more affidavits and that official verification would confirm the doubts raised by the ECI.

This prompted immediate pushback. Justice Bagchi stated, “We are not in the business of inquiring,” adding that the petitioners should have conducted such an inquiry earlier. He questioned, “Without looking into that, how can you give this affidavit?” Justice Kant added that these individuals could have directly approached the legal service authorities themselves.

Bhushan then pivoted, seeking to demonstrate the ECI’s deviation from its own rules, guidelines, manuals, and its lack of transparency. When he began explaining the procedure adopted in the 2003 SIR, Justice Kant interjected, stating that the Court need not refer to the 2003 procedure given the advent of technology. Bhushan countered, submitting that the ECI failed to adopt any technology in the current exercise that could simplify the process.

He argued that technology would have made the exercise “easy” by aiding in the removal of bogus or repetitive names, noting that thousands of people have “gibberish names.” He contended that the ECI possesses all the data in computerised form but is not utilising the available technology. Dwivedi interjected that Bhushan had not provided “not one name” that was gibberish. 

Court: Excluded voters should be ensured the right to appeal 

Senior Advocate Vrinda Grover pointed out that the electoral rolls would freeze on 17 October 2025, which was nine days away. She noted that the statutory scheme lacked a timeline for passing orders on appeals filed by electors, leading to worries that appeals filed before the deadline might not be decided.

Justice Bagchi quickly pushed back, stating that the petitioners had not provided specific details on appeals already filed and characterising the arguments as having “too much of passion, and little of reason.” Justice Kant assured the parties that the Court would monitor the entire process.

The Bench ultimately passed interim directions to “ensure the right to appeal” for the approximately 3.70 lakh electors excluded from the final voter list released on September 30. It directed the executive chairman of the Bihar Legal Service Authority to inform secretaries of the district legal service authority to ensure that:

1. The services of para-legal volunteers are provided to enable excluded persons to file their statutory appeals. 
2. The secretaries immediately re-notify the mobile numbers and other details of the para-legal volunteers to each village. The volunteers will contact the BLOs. The BLOs were directed to collect the information on persons excluded from the final voter list. 
3. The para-legal volunteers reach out to excluded persons and inform them about their right to file appeals. 
4. The state legal service authorities monitor the process and submit a status report to the Court within one week. 

Yadav: SIR results in a systemic exclusion of voters

Yadav began his arguments by pointing out that the SIR had “weaponised” a regular process of electoral revision by introducing three mechanisms that lead to exclusion. First, he argued that the automatic exclusion of those who fail to submit enumeration forms was unprecedented and resulted in “systemic exclusion.” Second, he argued that there was structural exclusion by shifting the onus onto voters rather than the authorities. Third, the inquiry into citizenship of the voters would lead to erroneous deletions. 

He argued that the exercise saw the largest shrinkage of an electoral roll in the history of the country. He pointed out that Bihar had an estimated adult population of 8.22 crores, and had 7.89 crore voters on the roll before the exercise began. He pointed out that the number had reduced by 47 lakhs instead of increasing.

Further, Yadav submitted that the previous electoral rolls had a better gender ratio. This gap had increased in the final electoral roll. He submitted that the deficit of women voters had widened to 16 lakhs, when it used to be seven lakhs in January 2025. He also referred to several errors in the electoral roll stating that names were left blank or contained gibberish values. For instance, names appearing in the Bihar roll were written in Kannada and Tamil. Moreover, the duplication of names had worsened with 5.24 lakh duplicate names on the final roll, an increase from 4.9 lakh names found in the draft roll. 

Yadav then stated that 40 percent of the names included in draft rolls were of those aged more than 25 years. This was unexpected as new names are expected to be from the 18-19 age bracket—which made only 20 percent. Lastly, he pointed out that shifting the onus of responsibility to the voters had led to a 15-20 percent drop in participation, particularly from the marginalised groups. He also argued that there was an absurd trend of voters seeking removal of their names from the roll, particularly those who had filed their enumeration forms during the preparation of the draft roll.