Institute of Legal and Management Studies

The Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) has told the Supreme Court that the Election Commission of India (ECI), despite possessing data on the reasons for deleting nearly 65 lakh names from the electoral roll in Bihar, removed the column specifying these reasons before publication of the draft roll-on August 1.

The Supreme Court today asked the ECI to respond to the application by Saturday.

The Court directed the ECI to clarify whether the draft roll was shared with political parties prior to publication, and to specify which parties were given the lists.

ADR has alleged that while the ECI had provided this information in an earlier version of the electoral roll shared with some political parties before the draft roll was published, the corresponding column titled “Uncollectable Reason” was omitted from the list circulated after publication.

“That the Election Commission is in possession of such a list, as is evident from a sample list for one constituency (as provided to some political parties on 20.07.2025) that the petitioner obtained. This list provided the reason for not filling of Enumeration Form under the column titled “Uncollectable Reason”. However, in the list of deleted names as shared by the ECI after publication of the draft roll, the said column itself has been removed.”

ADR has contended that the current electoral roll format has done away with past practices where the names of all deleted electors were published in the booth-level roll, and a summary of additions and deletions was provided on the last page.

The application states that this omission makes it impossible for the public, political parties and the petitioners to verify whether the deletions were legitimate. It also points out that voters whose names are missing from the draft roll are not entitled to legal remedies such as notice or personal hearing under Rule 21A of the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960, and therefore face the highest risk of disenfranchisement.

“ECI's concealment of reason for deletion against each name in the list of 65 lakh electors seems to be an attempt to obviate the general public including the petitioners from ascertaining whether or not electors whose names figure in the said list are indeed dead or permanently migrated. It is to be noted that as per the Election Commission, those whose names do not figure in the draft roll stand do not enjoy the right to routine legal remedies (notice, personal hearing and appeals) available under Section 21A of the Registration of Voters Rules They do not have the option of participating in the process of claims and objections and thus are at the biggest risk of disenfranchisement.”

ADR's application refers to the July 25 press note issued by the ECI which stated that approximately 22 lakh electors were found to be deceased, 7 lakh were registered in more than one location, and 35 lakh had either permanently migrated or were untraceable. It has argued in the application that this shows the ECI is in possession of granular data that has not been made public.

“It is submitted that the list with names of 65 lakh deleted electors curiously fails to disclose the reason of non submission of their enumeration forms, an information that the Election Commission evidently possesses. In other words, it fails to provide any explanation as to why these names were not included in the Draft Electoral Rolls whether for reason of having been deceased, permanently migrated out of Bihar, being untraceable or on the ground of duplicate entry”, the application states.

The application further seeks the publication of a booth-wise list of electors whose Enumeration Forms were marked “not recommended” by Booth Level Officers (BLOs), as required under the ECI's June 24 directive.

ADR has submitted that there are no published guidelines on how such recommendations are made. It contended that a high number of electors, i.e., 10.6% of the forms in Darbhanga and 12.6% in Kaimur were marked not recommended by BLOs.

In its prayer, ADR has asked the Court to direct the ECI to publish (a) a full and final assembly constituency and booth-wise list of the deleted 65 lakh electors along with reasons for deletion, and (b) a booth-wise list of electors in the August 1 draft roll whose Enumeration Forms have been marked “not recommended by the BLOs”.

The petitions challenging the Bihar SIR exercise are scheduled to be heard on August 12.

Case no. – I.A. in Writ Petition (Civil) No. 640 of 2025

Case Title – Association for Democratic Reforms & Ors. v. Election Commission of India