Bihar voter declared “dead” in draft roll appears alive before Supreme Court

In a striking turn of events during the Supreme Court hearing on the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of Bihar’s electoral rolls, activist Yogendra Yadav presented two living citizens — designated "dead" on paper—as evidence of the revision’s flaws.

The demonstration brought home the high-stakes implications of the ongoing voter list clean-up process, which has excluded around 65 lakh electors under categories like deceased, relocated, or duplicate.

One such individual, Mintu Paswan, aged 41 from Bhojpur district, shared his experience with The Wire. He said he filled out the required form for inclusion but was removed from the draft without any inquiry.

Now, while being reinstated requires bank documents and school certificates, he noted, “They didn't ask for any documents when striking off my name.”

The SIR exercise has been controversial due to its strict documentation requirements. Voters not on the 2003 rolls must provide one of 11 approved ID documents—for example, birth certificates—which many, particularly migrants, lack.

With approximately 75 lakh people from Bihar migrating elsewhere for work, opponents argue that widespread deletions disproportionately disenfranchise marginalized voters.

Critics have decried SIR as the "largest exercise of disenfranchisement" in India’s history. CPI(ML) General Secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya called it a constitutional attack, citing the exclusion of 66 lakh voters, including 36 lakh suspected to have migrated and 7 lakh duplicates.

The Supreme Court echoed these concerns, viewing the controversy as more a “trust deficit” than procedural oversight. Justices questioned whether rejecting commonly used IDs like Aadhaar was justified, though the Election Commission holds that such documents alone do not guarantee citizenship.

The EC clarified that the statutory framework does not require publishing names of those excluded, but advises affected individuals to file Form 6 for re-inclusion. It emphasized that exclusions might be due to “inadvertence or error” and can be corrected at the booth level by Electoral Registration Officers (EROs).

Adding another layer to the legal scrutiny, the Supreme Court sought clarity from the EC on how to handle the mass removal—highlighting that interventions are still possible under constitutional and statutory provisions.