SC order on Bihar SIR vindicates concerns: Dipankar Bhattacharya

CPI(ML) Liberation general-secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya on Thursday said the Supreme Court’s interim order on the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar has "vindicated" the concerns raised by civil society and opposition parties since the controversial drive began.

In a statement issued after the SC order, Bhattacharya said, "Finally, we have an interim order from the apex court in Bihar's SIR case. The order rejects the EC's stubborn refusal to heed the suggestions already made by the Supreme Court and addresses three core concerns about the practical implementation of the drive. This interim order vindicates some of the basic objections and apprehensions raised from day one since the sudden launch of the SIR".

Earlier in the day, a bench comprising Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi directed the Election Commission of India (ECI) to publish the names of the 65 lakh voters deleted from the list, along with reasons for deletion, to ensure transparency.

The bench passed the order while hearing pleas challenging the 24 June ECI decision to conduct the SIR of the electoral rolls in Bihar.

"The issue of legality of SIR is yet to be determined by the Supreme Court. The interim order asks the EC to come clean about all the deletions with specific assigned reasons, make the information public and accessible to all electors, not routed through booth-level agents (BLA) of political parties, and accept Aadhaar as a valid supporting document", Bhattacharya said

Bhattacharya is one of the petitioners who moved the top court, seeking direction for quashing the ECI order. "What happens to the 3.5 million migrant workers whose names have been removed? For people like Mintu Paswan, declared dead by the SIR, this could be a second lease of electoral life," he added.

He called for the ECI to take responsibility for correcting its errors, suggesting the establishment of grievance redressal camps at booth and block levels. "The scale of exclusion is massive, time is short, and most electors have been penalised without fault.

"The onus of correction should also be put on the perpetrators of error. That is the principle of fairness, natural justice and transparency that the EC had invoked as guiding tenets for the SIR in its counter affidavit filed before the SC on 21 July", he said.