The Election Commission on Saturday told the Supreme Court that it is not required under existing rules to publish a separate list of persons excluded from the draft electoral roll, Live Law reported.

In an affidavit, the poll body said the rules do not require it to explain why a person’s name is missing from the draft roll.

The submission was made in response to a petition by the non-profit organisation Association for Democratic Reforms, which had sought a court directive for the poll body to explain the reasons for deleting 65 lakh names from Bihar’s draft electoral roll.

The draft roll, published on August 1 as part of a special revision ahead of the Assembly elections expected in October or November, showed that 65.6 lakh names had been deleted from the list.

According to the Election Commission, 22 lakh of these were due to deaths, 36 lakh were of people who had permanently shifted or were untraceable and 7 lakh were duplicate entries.

On Wednesday, a bench led by Justice Surya Kant, had directed the Election Commission to submit the details by Saturday. The matter will be heard on Tuesday.

On Saturday, the Election Commission opposed the plea, arguing that such measures are not required under the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960.

It added that it has provided political parties with booth-level lists of individuals whose enumeration forms were not received and sought their assistance in contacting them, the Live Law reported. The enumeration form is used to collect voter information for updating the electoral roll.

“To facilitate scrutiny of the draft roll from August 1 to September 1, printed and digital copies have been made available to political parties, along with an online facility for the public,” The Hindu quoted the Election Commission as saying in its affidavit.

On Saturday, Scroll reported that the Election Commission replaced the digital draft voter lists in Bihar with scanned images on its official websites. The digital draft lists are machine-readable and easier to analyse for errors and patterns on a large scale. The scanned versions make this process harder.

In its affidavit, the commission added that the persons not listed in the draft electoral roll can submit an application under Form 6, along with a declaration, to seek inclusion during the claims and objections period from August 1 to September 1.

Form 6 is the application form used to register a new voter or apply for a change of address within the electoral roll.

The poll body said that when a person submits Form 6 it is implied that such a person is neither dead, nor migrated, nor untraceable.

It argued that giving specific reasons for a person’s non-inclusion in the draft roll “serves no practical purpose” as the verification process for all three categories is the same, Live Law reported.

The poll body also clarified that being left out of the draft roll does not necessarily mean a voter has been deleted from the final list.

It told the Supreme Court that no voter in Bihar would be deleted from the draft electoral roll without notice, The Hindu reported.

The poll panel submitted that its policy would follow the principles of natural justice, giving voters facing deletion a “reasonable opportunity of being heard and furnishing relevant documents”.

The final order by the competent authority would be “reasoned and speaking”, it added.

Bihar voter roll revision

The revision of the electoral rolls in Bihar was announced by the Election Commission on June 24.

As part of the exercise, persons whose names were not on the 2003 voter list needed to submit proof of eligibility to vote.

Voters born before July 1, 1987, were required to show proof of their date and place of birth, while those born between July 1, 1987, and December 2, 2004, had to also submit documents establishing the date and place of birth of one of their parents.

Those born after December 2, 2004, needed proof of date of birth for themselves and both parents.

The draft voter list comprises electors who submitted their enumeration forms to the poll panel between June 24 and July 26. They will now have to produce proof of citizenship to make it to the final list that will be published on September 30.

A Scroll analysis of the data published by the Election Commission on August 1 showed that women made up 55% of voters who were excluded from Bihar’s draft voter list after the revision.

It also showed that five of the state’s 10 districts with the largest share of Muslim population had the highest number of excluded voters.

At 15.1%, Gopalganj district in western Bihar saw the highest rate of exclusion in the state. The voter list in the district’s Gopalganj Assembly constituency shrunk by 18.25% – also the highest in the state.

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