Supreme Court to hear plea against deletion of 47 lakh names in Delhi SIR

The Supreme Court will hear on September 21 a plea challenging deletion of names from Delhi’s electoral roll under the Special Intensive Revision exercise. The Election Commission had deleted 47 lakh voters from the draft roll published on August 31.

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to hear on September 21 a plea against deletion of names from the electoral roll under the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise in Delhi.

A bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana said it will hear the matter on Monday as other matters related to SIR exercises are also listed next week.

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Advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for the petitioner, submitted that out of the 47 lakh people whose names have been deleted from the electoral roll in Delhi, the poll panel has issued notices to 33 lakh people.

“What they have done is that they have not disclosed the names of people who have been issued notices or on what grounds they have been deleted. They have not disclosed which people notice has been issued to. What are the logical discrepancies and how are they unmapped,” Bhushan submitted.

On August 31, the Election Commission published a draft electoral roll under which 47 lakh voters were deleted from the list of 1.45 crore total voters.

Around one in three voters in Delhi were removed from the draft electoral roll published as part of the Special Intensive Revision of the voter list.

The poll panel had said over 43.32 lakh were found to have shifted or were absent during the SIR, over 2.82 lakh voters were found to be deceased, while over 1.41 lakh were enrolled at multiple places.