Yogendra Yadav Moves Supreme Court Against Bihar’s Voter Roll Revision Ahead Of Assembly Elections, Stay Sought On Voters Deletion
In a major improvement, a Public Curiosity Litigation (PIL) has been filed underneath Article 32 of the Structure earlier than the Supreme Courtroom, difficult the Election Fee of India’s (ECI) “Particular Intensive Revision” (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar, apprehending that it may lead to large-scale disenfranchisement forward of the state’s upcoming Meeting elections.
The PIL, filed by psephologist and politician Yogendra Singh Yadav, additionally seeks an instantaneous keep on the SIR, calling it “manifestly arbitrary, unreasonable, and violative of electoral legal guidelines.” As a part of the interim aid, the petitioner has urged the Courtroom to remain the continuing SIR course of, forestall any deletions from the prevailing electoral rolls final up to date in January 2025, and direct the ECI to conduct Bihar’s elections utilizing these present rolls.
The petitioner argues that the revision course of compels present voters to re-establish their eligibility utilizing a slender set of 11 paperwork intentionally excluding extensively held proofs similar to Aadhaar playing cards, ration playing cards, and MGNREGA job playing cards. Failure to submit the required varieties by the July 25, 2025, deadline would result in an computerized deletion of names with none alternative for the affected voters to be heard, which, the petition contends, is a direct violation of the pure justice precept.
The petition highlights that the revision train disproportionately impacts marginalized teams similar to ladies, SC/ST communities, and migrants, lots of whom lack the required paperwork. The 90-day verification window, overlapping with Bihar’s monsoon season, can also be criticized as impractical given the truth that a lot of these sections of individuals lack beginning certificates, land paperwork, or different mandated identification proofs, as per media experiences (The Hindu, The Indian Categorical) which led to the confusion amongst Bihar’s 7.89 crore voters.
Additional, the PIL argues the SIR violates Part 22 of the Illustration of the Individuals Act, 1950, and Rule 21-A of the Registration of Electors Guidelines, 1960 as each the statutes require procedural safeguards earlier than deletion of names. It additionally cites Articles 14, 15, and 326, asserting that the method is discriminatory and undermines democratic rights. The petition additional depends on the Supreme Courtroom’s KS Puttaswamy (2017) proportionality normal and the 1995 ruling in Lal Babu Hussein, which upheld continuity for present voters.
(The PIL was filed by way of an AoR Yash S Vijay, was drawn by Advocates Harshit Anand and Natasha Maheshwari, and settled by Senior Advocate Shadan Farasat.)
