Owaisi moves SC against SIR, joins Opposition’s legal fight

The CJI said he would examine the request and list the matter with the connected cases on October 15.

New Delhi: All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) chief Asaduddin Owaisi has moved the Supreme Court against the manner in which the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls is being carried out, joining a growing list of Opposition leaders who have taken the Election Commission’s exercise to court.

Advocate Nizamuddin Pasha mentioned the plea on Wednesday, October 14, before a bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant. He sought that it be heard along with similar petitions listed for Thursday, October 15.

Referring to the petition, Pasha told the bench that the matter concerned the manner in which the SIR exercise was being conducted. Pasha submitted that the relevant cases had been identified in the memo accompanying his request for listing.

The CJI said he would examine the request and list the matter with the connected cases.

Opposition’s joint plea

On Monday, October 12, Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and nine other Opposition leaders filed a petition in the top court. It challenged alleged large-scale deletion of voters and irregularities in the SIR and sought action against Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar.

The petition was filed after INDIA bloc leaders and hundreds of supporters marched towards the Supreme Court. It sought an independent committee, headed by a retired Supreme Court judge and assisted by technical experts, to audit the electoral rolls.

The plea could not be listed on Tuesday, October 13, because the apex court registry had flagged 14 defects in it, including illegible and missing pages. The bench assured the petitioners that their matters would be listed once the defects were cured.

The court also adjourned to Thursday a batch of pleas linked to the recent protests in Delhi, including on the closure of Metro stations and the disruption of train services. The adjournment came because Justice V Mohana, a member of the bench, was unwell.

Commissioners’ objections

The SIR is a door-to-door verification of voters. It began in Bihar last year, where around 68 lakh names were deleted from the rolls, and has since been extended to several other states and Union Territories, including Telangana.

The exercise has drawn protests across the country. Opposition parties have demanded that it be halted and that CEC Kumar resign.

The protests gained momentum after The Indian Express reported last month that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had raised written objections to several SIR-related decisions. These included decisions on the deletion of names and the handling of voter data. According to the report, Kumar rejected the objections.

The Election Commission has said the report reflected differing views and deliberations rather than formal objections, and that all its decisions were unanimous.

The poll body has maintained that the exercise aims to clean up electoral rolls by removing dead, shifted and duplicate voters, while ensuring that no eligible voter is left out.