SC Orders ECI to Publish Booth-Wise List of 65 Lakh Deleted Bihar Voters with Reasons

In a significant push for electoral transparency, the Supreme Court on Thursday directed the Election Commission of India (ECI) to publish a booth-wise, enumerated list of nearly 65 lakh voters whose names were excluded from Bihar’s draft electoral roll during the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise.

A Bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi ordered that the list must include specific reasons for each exclusion — such as death, migration, untraceability, or duplication — and be made accessible to the public both online and offline.

The court emphasised that this measure was essential to uphold the voters’ constitutional right to remain on the electoral roll. “People have a right to know. A high degree of transparency is required to inspire voters’ confidence,” Justice Bagchi said.

The ECI had argued that booth-level officers (BLOs) and political party agents (BLAs) were already assisting excluded voters. However, the court dismissed this reasoning, stating that voters’ access to information should not depend on political workers or officials.
“If the names and reasons of deletion are displayed, it would minimise manual interventions… Voters must have an independent right to check their status,” Justice Kant observed.

Public Access in Multiple Formats

Under the interim order, the ECI must:

Publish the list on District Electoral Officers’ (DEOs) websites across Bihar.

Display physical copies at BLO offices, panchayat offices, and block development offices.

Upload the data on the Bihar Chief Electoral Officer’s official website.

Issue layman-friendly public notices in both vernacular and English through newspapers, radio, television, and authorised social media.


The court also mandated that the list should be searchable using voters’ EPIC numbers.

Aadhaar as Proof for Objections

Aggrieved electors can file objections with their Aadhaar card as proof of identity and residence — marking the first time the court has explicitly directed Aadhaar’s use in a Bihar SIR exercise.

The ECI has been instructed to compile compliance reports from BLOs and DEOs, and submit a consolidated status update to the court by August 22 at 2 p.m.

Precedent for Other States

The court noted that this interim order would serve as a precedent for handling similar disputes in SIR exercises across other states.

Justice Kant summed up the court’s stance: “The process has to be comfortable for voters. For a migrant worker who has been deleted as dead, even if he is illiterate, his neighbours or friends would alert him — but only if the names are out there for all to see.”