While observing a PIL plea, the Supreme Court sought a response from the Central government within two weeks. File Photo
SC to hear RJD, AIMIM pleas on Bihar voter list deadline on Sept 1
Opposition parties tell the apex court that thousands of voters are being left out of Bihar’s electoral rolls and demand more time to ensure fair participation ahead of the state polls
The Supreme Court has agreed to hear on Monday (September 1) pleas made by the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) to extend the deadline for submission of claims and objections in the contentious Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar, which will go to polls soon.
The same date is the deadline for the submission of claims and objections concerning the inclusion or exclusion of voters’ names from the draft roll.
On Friday (August 29), a bench comprising Justices Surya Kant, Joymalya Bagchi, and Vipul M Pancholi agreed to list the applications filed by political parties on Monday, which implied September 1, as the outfits sought an urgent hearing.
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On Friday, advocate Prashant Bhushan and senior advocate Shoeb Alam, who appeared for the RJD, mentioned to the bench about several parties filing pleas for the deadline’s extension.
Large-scale filing of claims
Advocate Nizam Pasha, who represented the AIMIM, wanted the extension due to the large-scale filing of claims and objections. “The number of claims filed is exponentially rising. The deadline needs to be extended,” he said.
According to Pasha, more than 80,000 claims were filed before the Supreme Court's August 22 order, while 95,000 claims were filed after it. He said the request was to list the applications at the earliest.
EC turning a blind eye?
When the bench wanted to know from the petitioners why they hadn’t gone to the Election Commission (EC) for relief, Bhushan said it did not consider their request.
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According to the plea that the RJD filed through advocate Fauzia Shakil, in the SIR, the number of polling booths went up to 90,712, and the party appointed booth-level agents (BLAs) in 47,506 of them, which is around 52 per cent of the booths.
The party alleged that even after the Supreme Court’s August 22 order, its booth-level agents (BLAs) submitted claims with Aadhaar cards, but despite acknowledgement by booth-level officers, these claims were neither recorded nor reflected in the Election Commission’s daily status report, creating the impression that BLAs were not cooperating or filing claims.
“Since the last order of this court dated August 22, 2025, which permitted the filing of claims along with Aadhaar card, the number of claims has doubled from 84,305 on August 22, 2025, to 1,78,948 electors on August 27, 2025, in only five days,” the RJD said.
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The plea alleged that in many instances across districts, officers refused to accept the claims with the Aadhaar card only and insisted on one of the 11 documents mentioned in the EC’s order of June 24 in “utter disregard of the orders passed by the court”.
Seeking direction to the commission for extending the timeline by two weeks and accepting the claims of deleted voters till September 15, the RJD said the EC’s daily SIR update showed the number of claims had increased with over a lakh of them filed in the last week, and 33,349 filed in the past two days.
The AIMIM, on the other hand, sought an extension of the timeline to file claims and objections by excluded electors seeking inclusion in the electoral roll of Bihar by a period of four weeks.
Apex court's Aug 22 order
On August 22, the apex court asked the EC to allow excluded voters to submit claims through online mode, besides making physical submissions in the SIR exercise of the electoral roll in Bihar.
Eight days before that, the court also directed the panel to publish by August 19 details of the 65 lakh voters excluded from the draft electoral rolls in the state to enhance “transparency” in the SIR of the voters’ list and allow Aadhaar as an acceptable document for identity proof.
The revision of the voters’ list in Bihar -- the first since 2003 -- has sparked a huge political row. The SIR's findings have reduced the total number of registered voters in Bihar, from 7.9 crores before the exercise to 7.24 crores.
(With agency inputs)