Supreme Court to hear petitions against Bihar electoral roll revision on July 10-OxBig News Network

The Supreme Court will on Thursday take up petitions challenging the Election Commission’s decision to conduct a Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the Electoral Rolls in Bihar, ahead of Assembly elections to be held in October-November, 2025.

The petitions are listed for hearing on July 10 before a Bench of Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia and Justice Joymalya Bagchi, which on Wednesday agreed to hear a fresh petition filed by activists Arshad Ajmal and Rupesh Kumar against SIR of electoral rolls in Bihar.

Acting on petitions filed by the Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR), People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), RJD MP Manoj Jha, TMC MP Mahua Moitra and activist Yogendra Yadav, the Supreme Court had on Monday agreed to take up on July 10 petitions challenging electoral rolls’ revision in Bihar.

Apprehending potential disenfranchisement of nearly three crore voters, the ADR has urged the top court to set aside the EC’s SIR Order as being arbitrary and violative of Articles 14, 19, 21, 325 and 326 of the Constitution as well as provisions of Representation of People’s Act, 1950 and Rule 21A of the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960. Pending its petition, the petitioner NGO wanted the court to stay the implementation of EC’s June 24, 2025 SIR Order to conduct an SIR of the electoral rolls in poll-bound Bihar.

Leaders of eight opposition parties have also jointly moved the top court against the Election Commission’s decision. KC Venugopal (Congress), Supriya Sule (NCP-Sharad Pawar), D Raja (CPI), Harinder Malik (Samajwadi Party), Arvind Sawant (Shiv Sena UBT), Sarfraz Ahmed (JMM), Dipankar Bhattacharya (CPI-Marxist-Leninist) and DMK have urged the top court to stay the process. Former Bihar MLA Mujahid Alam has also filed a petition in the top court on the issue.

The EC had on June 24 ordered an SIR in Bihar — first since 2003 — to weed out ineligible individuals and ensure only eligible citizens were included in the electoral rolls. The exercise was necessitated by rapid urbanisation, frequent migration, young citizens becoming eligible to vote, non-reporting of deaths, and inclusion of the names of foreign illegal immigrants, it said.

The EC has clarified that while voters were required to “submit their documents any time before July 25, 2025”, those who failed to do so would get an opportunity “during the Claims & Objections period also”. It has urged people to “beware of statements being made by a few persons, who without reading the SIR order dated 24 June 2025…. are attempting to confuse the public with their incorrect and misleading statements”.