Supreme Court to Hear Delhi SIR Plea on Monday, Flags Notices to 33 Lakh Voters

The Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to give precedence to a writ petition that questions how the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls is being carried out in Delhi, and will take it up on Monday.

A three-judge Bench headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant said such matters would be given priority while listing the case. The petition has been filed by advocates Prashant Bhushan and Neha Rathi.

Appearing before the court, Mr. Bhushan pointed out that in addition to the more than 47 lakh electors dropped from the draft roll, the Election Commission is preparing to issue notices to 33 lakh people.

He said the notices rest on two grounds — logical discrepancies and mapping. Logical discrepancies relate to the personal details of voters, and could cover anything from improbable age gaps within a family and changes in a parent's name to entries supported only by Aadhaar. Mapping refers to the exercise of checking a voter's details against earlier records or the family's generational voting history drawn from past electoral rolls.

Mr. Bhushan told the court that the authorities have not disclosed, as the rules require, the names of the people being served notices, and submitted that these names should be published on the Election Commission's website.

He said some voters receive notices while others do not, that the notices do not state why the recipient is being asked to appear, and that no reason is given for flagging a person for a logical discrepancy. He described the conduct of the SIR as completely opaque and urged the court to list the case early.

The draft list published on August 31 included more than 97 lakh electors out of the 1.45 crore whose enumeration forms were generated, while 47.56 lakh names were removed.