Top Court To Hear Plea For Bihar Poll Revision Claim Deadline Extension On Monday

The Supreme Court will hear a plea on Monday seeking the extension of the deadline to submit claims by deleted voters from September 1 to 15.

The Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) had filed an application seeking extension of the timeline for Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in Supreme Court along with a status report on steps taken by it to help deleted voters.

The RJD claims that despite a previous order of the top court directing acceptance of Aadhaar as a valid document, Booth Level Agents (BLAs) are still not accepting the document. The party has also claimed that the Election Commission (EC) is deliberately building a false narrative that political parties are not cooperating and not filing claims of deleted voters.

In it's status report, the RJD has cited some instances where claims by genuine electors in Form 6 have been wrongly deleted by the EC, but were collected by the BLA along with the acknowledgment on the declaration form by the Block Level Officer.

"Although these claims have been acknowledged by the BLAs, they have not been reflected by the Election Commission in the daily status report to set up a wrong narrative that the BLAs of political parties are not cooperating and filing claim," the plea claims.

The party also claims that since the last Supreme Court Order which permitted the filing of claims along with Aadhaar Card, the number of claims have doubled from 84,305 on August 22 to 1,78,948 electors on August 27, a period of just five days.

"However, across districts, there are many instances where the Officers have refused to accept the claims only with the Aadhaar Card and have, in utter disregard to the orders passed by this Supreme Court, have insisted upon one of the 11 documents mentioned in the ECI Order dated June 24, RJD claimed in its status report submitted in the top court.

It also claims that out of the 7.2 crore electors who have submitted their enumeration forms, many have not submitted any of the 11 enumerated documents.

The plea stated that as per the EC's press release dated July 12, the electors were permitted to furnish documents till August 30. For many electors, despite the order of this court dated August 22, Aadhaar card was not accepted by the BLAs, it further read.

The RJD further informed the court that in this SIR, the number of polling booths have increased to 90,712. Rashtriya Janta Dal has appointed BLAs on 47,506 polling booths, approximately 52 per cent of polling booths.

"BLOs did not cooperate with the BLAs and refused to give acknowledgment to claims collected by RJD from electors, the party claimed.

In its August 22 hearing, the top court had made 12 political parties part of the hearing on the SIR and asked them to file a status report as to what they have done to help deleted voters.

The party specifically requests the Election Commission extend the deadline for submitting claims by deleted voters by two weeks, allowing submissions until September 15.

It further seeks a direction to the EC to publicise the Supreme Court's order dated August 22 and inform the electors that claims can be filed along with Aadhaar.

It has also sought a direction from the Election Commission to reflect the claims received from the deleted elector acknowledged by the BLAs in its daily status report against the party.

It also seeks direction to the EC to accept the Aadhaar card for the electors who have submitted their enumeration form and not delete any entry from the draft roll on grounds of insufficiency of documents in case an elector has an Aadhaar.