SC to hear RJD plea on Sep 1 for two-week extension for voter registration in Bihar

THe sublime margaret court on fri in agreement(p) to try on September 1 a petition filed by the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) seeking an extension of the deadline for filing claims and objections in the ongoing electoral roll revision in Bihar. The current deadline expires on September 1.A bench led by Justice Surya Kant listed the matter for Monday after the plea was urgently mentioned by advocate Prashant Bhushan and senior counsel Shoeb Alam. When Justice Kant asked whether the request for an extension had first been made before the Election Commission of India (ECI), Bhushan responded that the representation had indeed been made but was not heeded.RJD, in its application, has asked the court to direct the Commission to extend the claims period by two weeks, till September 15, citing the sharp rise in applications from excluded voters. “As per the ECI’s own daily SIR (special intensive revision) update, the number of claims have increased and more than one lakh claims filed in the last one week. 33,349 claims have been filed in the last two days. The period of filing claims expires on 01-09-2025. Unless extended, genuine electors whose names have been erroneously deleted by the EC will not be able to submit their claims and consequently will be barred from exercising their right to vote in the coming elections,” the plea states.The party has also argued that the Commission’s own manual on electoral rolls prohibits suo motu deletions in an election year, and that a truncated timeline could affect “the purity of electoral rolls.” According to the application filed by advocate Fauzia Shakil, since the court’s August 22 order allowing Aadhaar to be used as proof of identity for claims, “the number of claims have doubled from 84,305 on 22-08-2025 to 1,78,948 electors on 27-08-2025 in only five days.”Also Read: SC asks Bengal school commission to provide tainted teachers’ list in a weekRJD further alleged that several electoral officers were continuing to insist on one of 11 identity documents listed in the ECI’s June 24 notification, “in utter disregard” of the court’s clarification that Aadhaar alone would suffice. It has therefore also sought directions to the Commission to publicise the August 22 order and to ensure that claims submitted with Aadhaar are duly accepted and reflected in its daily status reports.Friday’s development comes a week after the Supreme Court pulled up political parties in Bihar for their “inaction” in assisting voters whose names were deleted in the SIR exercise. Nearly 6.5 million voters were excluded from the draft rolls, according to figures presented in court.On August 22, the bench, also comprising Justice Joymalya Bagchi, noted that despite appointing over 1.6 lakh booth-level agents (BLAs), political parties had filed only two objections. “We are surprised at the inaction of political parties. What have they done after appointing BLAs? Why is there a distance between workers of political parties and voters? They know these people well,” the bench remarked on the day, directing recognised parties to actively assist excluded voters in submitting claims before the September 1 deadline.To make the process more voter-friendly, the bench had clarified that claims could be submitted using Aadhaar or any of the 11 approved identity documents, and that physical filing was not mandatory. It asked booth-level officers to acknowledge all submissions and urged ECI to consider uploading objections online to increase transparency.The August 22 hearing followed the ECI’s compliance affidavit filed a day earlier, in which it said it had published booth-wise lists of all 6.5 million excluded voters on the websites of Bihar’s 38 district election officers and the chief electoral officer, along with reasons for exclusion -- death, migration or duplication.The Commission said these lists were also displayed in panchayat offices and shared with booth-level officer (BLOs) and BLAs, while a publicity drive was carried out through newspapers, radio, social media and notices at block and village offices. “Aggrieved persons may submit their claims along with a copy of their Aadhaar card,” the affidavit stated.On August 14, the Supreme Court had made it clear that electoral roll preparation was “not a mere administrative formality but a process with direct implications for a citizen’s franchise.” It had directed ECI to publish exclusion lists in a searchable, voter-friendly format and to accept Aadhaar as valid proof for claims.The controversy over SIR has snowballed into a political flashpoint ahead of the Bihar assembly elections later this year. Opposition parties in the INDIA bloc have accused ECI of seeking to disenfranchise millions of voters and warned that the exercise could be replicated nationally.ECI, however, has defended the revision, saying Bihar’s rolls had not undergone intensive updating in nearly two decades. “It would be more constructive if parties came forward and helped genuine voters instead of staging demonstrations,” Dwivedi said in court on Friday.