Bihar Sir Case: Use Aadhaar card to include voters, Supreme Court tells EC

On Friday, August 22, the Supreme Court ordered the Election Commission to use Aadhaar (India’s unique biometrics-backed identity card) to verify the identity of people excluded from the voters’ list.

The latest order of the Apex Court is a victory for the petitioners in the case against the controversial Special Intensive Review (SIR) in Bihar. One of the appeals was against the rejection of Aadhaar as a valid proof of identity for inclusion in the voters’ list ahead of the impending state election in November 2025.

Before this appeal, the list of 11 documents was accepted by the EC as the identity proof did not include the Aadhaar card.

“All political parties will file the status report on the next date of hearing on the claim form which they had facilitated in filing by the excluded voters,” said the bench comprising Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi.

The court directed the Election Commission (EC) to allow excluded voters to submit claims through online mode besides making physical submissions in the Special Intensive Review (SIR) exercise of the electoral roll in Bihar. The case will next be heard on September 8.

The revised list of voters in Bihar excluded 6.5 million people. The court also has political parties helping people excluded from the draft lists to file requests for inclusion.

The bench was also surprised by the lack of formal objections from political outfits who have otherwise been busy protesting against Sir on the streets as well as inside Parliament. Of the 1.6 lakh booth-level officers, only two have filed a formal objection on behalf of those excluded from the list.

The bench directed election officials to provide acknowledgment receipt to booth agents of political parties, who physically submit the claim forms of excluded voters.

The ECI informed the bench that around 85,000 individual voters who were excluded in the draft lists had submitted their claim forms and over 2 lakh new voters had come forward to register their names in the electoral rolls under the SIR exercise in the state.

The top court on August 14 directed the poll committee to publish by August 19, details of 65 lakh voters excluded from the draft poll-linked electoral rolls of Bihar to improve “transparency” in the SIR of the voters’ list and enable Aadhaar as an acceptable identity proof document.