Institute of Legal and Management Studies

In the ongoing matter relating to the Bihar Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, the Election Commission of India (ECI) informed the Supreme Court that it is not obliged under the applicable Rules to publish a separate list of persons who have not been included in the draft electoral roll.

The ECI further submitted that the Rules do not mandate it to furnish reasons for the non-inclusion of any individual in the draft roll. It added that it has shared with political parties the booth-level list of individuals whose Enumeration Forms were not received due to any reason and sought their assistance in reaching out to those persons.

It added that after the publication of the draft rolls, the political parties were supplied with an updated list of names of electors not included in the draft roll so as to ensure all attempts are made to reach out to these individuals and no eligible elector is left out.

The Commission informed that individuals who are missing from the draft roll have the option of submitting a declaration to seek their inclusion.

The submissions came in response to an application filed by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), which had sought directions for the publication of a separate list of excluded individuals and the disclosure of reasons for their exclusion. The ECI opposed the plea, asserting that such measures are not required under the Rules.

The ADR's application, filed in the wake of the publication of the draft voters list on August 1, which had reportedly excluded about 65 lakh voters in Bihar, sought to direct the ECI to :

On August 6, the Supreme Court had asked the ECI to respond to the application, after it was mentioned by Advocate Prashant Bhushan.

In response, the ECI, citing Rules 10 and 11 of the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960, stated that the the statutory framework does not require the Commission to prepare or share any separate list of names of people not included in the draft electoral rolls, or publish the reasons for non-inclusion of anyone in the draft electoral rolls for any reason.

"As neither the law nor guidelines provide for preparation or sharing of any such list of previous electors whose enumeration form is not received for any reason during the Enumeration phase, no such list can be sought by the petition as a matter of right," the ECI stated in its counter-affidavit.

Persons who do not figure in the draft electoral roll published on 01.08.2025, can submit an application under Form 6 along with the Declaration contained in Annexure-D of the SIR Order to lodge a claim for inclusion in the draft roll during the claims and objections period, i.e., 01.08.2025 - 01.09.2025.

When a person submits such a form, it is implied that such a person is neither dead, nor migrated, nor untraceable. Hence, the ECI contended that "providing reasons for non-inclusion along with the list of names serves no practical purpose as the exercise for all three aforestated categories of persons (dead, permanently shifted or untraceable) remains the same."

"For these reasons, the Petitioner's assertion that without availability of reasons, the individuals whose names are excluded from the draft roll will not be able to seek appropriate recourse under the RER 1960 is false, misconceived, and unsustainable," the ECI stated.

Exclusion from draft does not amount to deletion from the roll

The ECI further stated that the exclusion of a name from the draft electoral roll does not amount to the deletion of an individual from the electoral rolls. The draft roll simply shows that the duly filled enumeration form of existing electors has been received during the Enumeration Phase. But, on account of human involvement in the execution of this exercise of scale, there is always a possibility that an exclusion or inclusion might surface due to inadvertence or error. Therefore, the Rules provide the remedy under Rule 21 for submitting an application for inclusion in the list. It is for this reason that the issuance of reasons for exclusion of names from the draft rolls is not contemplated in the statutory framework governing the preparation of electoral rolls.

The ECI added that it has shared with political parties the booth-level lists of electors who were reported as deceased electors, or whose Enumeration Forms were not received, or who were reported to be permanently migrated or could not be traced with the objective of requesting them to inquire about such electors in a focused manner. This was publicised as per a press note published on July 20. Since this information was in the public domain, the ECI attributed malafides on the part of the ADR in filing the present application.

ADR's application filed with mala-fides

The ECI contended that the ADR has filed the application with "unclean hands" and that the NGO's approach was similar to its earlier attempts to malign the ECI "by building false narratives on digital, print and social media." The ECI therefore urged the Court to "appropriately deal" with the petitioner by imposing heavy costs.

Regarding the ADR's contention that many persons, whose names were not recommended by the Booth Level Officers, were included in the draft, the ECI said that the inputs from the BLO are only "suggestive" and are subject to cross-verification by the Electoral Registration Officers.

Also, since the requirement of submitting eligibility documents is ongoing in the Claims and Objection period, the recommendatory exercise that the BLOs were required to conduct has become meaningless.

All possible steps taken to ensure eligible persons not excluded

The ECI also filed a separate affidavit detailing the measures it has taken to give wide publicity for the SIR exercise to ensure that every voter becomes aware of the process. The ECI stated that house-to-house visits were undertaken by the BLOs to collect the enumeration forms. To create awareness among persons who are working in other states, wide publicity was given through the publication of Hindi advertisements in 246 newspapers. SMS and social media campaigns were also undertaken.

2.5 lakh volunteers were deployed to give assistance to the voters.

The ECI asserted that no deletion of any elector's name from the draft electoral roll, published on 1st August 2025, shall be undertaken without: (i) issuance of a prior notice to the concerned elector indicating the proposed deletion and the grounds thereof, (ii) affording a reasonable opportunity of being heard and furnishing relevant documents, and (iii) passing of a reasoned and speaking order by the competent authority.

The Supreme Court will hear the petitions challenging the Bihar SIR exercise on August 12.

The ECI's affidavit has been drawn by Advocate Eklavya Dwivedi and Kumar Utsav.

Case : Association for Democratic Reforms v. Election Commission of India | WP(c) 640/2025.