Supreme Court Bench headed by Justice Dhulia to hear Bihar electoral roll revision case on July 10

The Supreme Court on Thursday heard pleas challenging the decision of the Election Commission of India (ECI) for a special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in poll-bound Bihar. The apex court said that what the EC is doing is mandated under the Constitution, and the last such exercise was undertaken in 2003.

A partial working day (PWD) bench comprising Justices Sudhanshu Dhulia and Joymalya Bagchi was told by senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi, appearing for the poll panel, that he has preliminary objections to the petitions.

Over 10 petitions have been filed in the Supreme Court, including one by the NGO ‘Association for Democratic Reforms’, the lead petitioner. RJD MP Manoj Jha and Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra, Congress’ K C Venugopal, NCP (SP) leader Supriya Sule, CPI leader D Raja, Samajwadi Party’s Harinder Singh Malik, Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Arvind Sawant, JMM’s Sarfraz Ahmed and Dipankar Bhattacharya of CPI (ML) have also moved the top court, seeking direction for quashing the EC order.