New Delhi: The Supreme Court has directed the Election Commission of India (ECI) to publish the list of around 65 lakh voters whose names have been omitted from the draft electoral roll published after the recent Special Intensive Revision (SIR) drive in poll-bound Bihar.
Not just the omitted names, the top court also said on Thursday that the reasons for deletion should be specified.
“Transparency is needed about 65 lakh deleted voters to enable people to seek clarification or correction,” a bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymala Bagchi said.
The information must be uploaded on the websites of the District Electoral Officers and also displayed on the website of Chief Electoral Officer of Bihar, and the documents should be searchable based on EPIC numbers, reported livelaw.in.
In another significant direction, the bench of Justices Kant and Bagchi said the ECI should specify in public notices that omitted persons can furnish their Aadhaar cards at the time of submitting claims for inclusion in the final list. The court said wide publicity should be given through newspapers, electronic and social media that the list will be published on website.
These steps have to be implemented by the ECI by August 19.
The bench posted the matter for further hearing on August 22.
