The Supreme Court on Tuesday warned that it will “step in” if there is any mass exclusion of voters in poll-bound Bihar, asking petitioners challenging the Election Commission of India’s (ECI) special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls to bring before it at least 15 individuals who have been wrongly declared dead in the draft electoral list, scheduled to be published on August 1.This is a constitutional institution. We will deem that its actions are in accordance with law. But if there is mass exclusion, we will immediately step in,” remarked a bench of justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi.
The court scheduled the next hearing for August 12 and 13, indicating that the first stage of hearings will focus on objections to the draft list, while the broader constitutional challenges to ECI’s notification could be taken up in a second phase in September.