THE JHARKHAND STORY DESK
New Delhi, July 28: The Supreme Court on Monday declined to halt the publication of draft electoral rolls in Bihar, which is headed for polls, and said it would deliver a conclusive verdict on the pleas challenging the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process.
A bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi announced that the schedule for the final hearing would be set on July 29, stressing that the matter would be settled “once and for all.”
Senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan, representing the NGO Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), urged the court to prevent finalisation of the electoral rolls in the interim and sought a temporary stay on the draft rolls’ publication.
Also Read- SC hears plea against Anurag Gupta’s appointment as Jharkhand DGP
However, the bench pointed out that the petitioners had earlier chosen not to seek interim relief, making such an order inappropriate at this stage.
The court also asked the Election Commission to continue accepting Aadhaar and voter ID during the SIR exercise, noting that both documents carry a “presumption of genuineness.”
Earlier hearings in the case saw ADR claim that Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) were mass uploading enumeration forms without voter consent during the update process.
