- विज्ञापन -
New Delhi, July 10: The Supreme Court on Thursday refused to stay the revision of the voter list before the Bihar assembly elections. The Supreme Court said that Aadhaar, Voter ID, and Ration Card should also be considered as identity cards. Now the next hearing will be held on July 28.
The court heard the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) i.e. voter list revision for about 3 hours. The petitioners allege that the voter list revision is being done bypassing the rules. The citizenship of the voter is being checked. This is against the law.
During this, the Supreme Court asked the Election Commission why it was getting involved in the issue of citizenship in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the voter list in Bihar. If you include a person’s name in the voter list only on the basis of proving their citizenship of the country, then this will be a big test. This is the work of the Home Ministry. You should not get into that.
Petitions have been filed against SIR by 11 people including RJD MP Manoj Jha, TMC MP Mahua Moitra.
A bench of Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia and Justice Joymalya Bagchi is hearing the case in the Supreme Court. Lawyers Gopal Shankar Narayan, Kapil Sibal and Abhishek Manu Singhvi are arguing on behalf of the petitioner. Former Attorney General KK Venugopal, Rakesh Dwivedi and Maninder Singh are representing the Election Commission.
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Petitioner’s counsel: Now that the elections are just a few months away, the Election Commission is saying that it will conduct a Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the entire voter list in 30 days.
Supreme Court: There is nothing wrong with the SIR process, but it should have been done many months before the upcoming election. It is necessary to check citizenship to become a voter in India, which comes under Article 326 of the Constitution. What the Election Commission is doing is mandatory under the Constitution and the last such process was done in 2003.
Supreme Court: Aadhaar card is being excluded from the list of documents during SIR.
Election Commission: During voter revision not only Aadhaar is being asked for, other documents are also being asked for.
What is Special Intensive Revision (SIR)?
Under this process, out of 7.9 crore voters in Bihar, only the citizenship and eligibility of 2.93 crore voters added after the year 2003 will be examined.
The Election Commission said that this step has been taken with the aim of removing illegal names (such as foreign nationals).
1.5 lakh booth level agents (BLAs) associated with every political party are participating in this process. Each agent can file up to 50 applications per day.
Documents required, otherwise name may be removed
Voters who have been added after January 1, 2003 or born after July 1987 will have to provide birth certificate, passport or educational certificate to prove their citizenship.
It is mandatory for migrant voters to submit self-declaration form by July 26, otherwise their name may be removed from the list.
Opposition’s protest: ‘Government is targeting the poor’
INDIA alliance including Congress, RJD, TMC, NCP (Sharad Pawar faction), CPI, SP, JMM and Shiv Sena (UBT) has called this move anti-people and biased.
Congress leaders termed it as ‘unofficial NRC’ and said that the requirement of documents can deprive the poor, rural and deprived sections of voting rights.
More than 10 petitions, including one by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), were filed in the Supreme Court.
EC’s clarification: Process is fair and transparent
The ECI rejected all the allegations and said that the process is not politically motivated but is to ensure the correctness of the voter list.
Last week, representatives of the INDIA alliance met the Election Commission in Delhi and lodged their objections on the issue for three hours.
