The Supreme Court on Thursday observed that the Election Commission of India’s (ECI) Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of Bihar’s electoral rolls was “justified,” noting that the number of registered voters in the state had once exceeded its adult population by as much as 107 per cent.“So SIR in any case was justified if this was the case,” Justice Surya Kant said, while presiding over a two-judge bench hearing petitions challenging the SIR exercise. The remark came after activist Yogendra Yadav referred to past figures showing the inflated voter rolls.Yadav told the bench, also comprising Justice Joymalya Bagchi, that according to government data, Bihar’s adult population in September stood at 8.22 crore. “In other words, the total electoral roll of Bihar should have been 8.22 crores. When SIR began, the electoral roll was 7.89 crores,” he said.As per the ECI, the final voters’ list for Bihar now stands at 7.42 crore.Yadav said, “All over the world, voters’ lists are judged on three parameters – completeness, equity and accuracy. Completeness is whether the size of the overall electoral roll [is] roughly the same that it should be given what we know about the population.”He added, “I would judge the completeness of SIR by asking have we moved from 7.89 to 8.22 crores? Unfortunately, instead of moving in the north, it has moved in south. It has brought us 47 lakhs below that.”Referring to the data, Justice Bagchi noted that “the difference between electors and adult population (in Bihar) was touching at 107 per cent. So there was swelling of the electoral population or duplication whatever, in comparison to the adult population. Particularly in respect of the 2014 Lok Sabha election and 2015 assembly election… So this was definitely a problem which required correction.”Story continues below this adJustice Bagchi further said, “From 2014, it rises and it goes on till 2022 and… are depressing now. You see the depressing… coming from 2022 bringing it down to 99 per cent, 97 and now according to you which is a chunk reduction…”Yadav acknowledged the earlier issue. “As you can see, for the initial 2-3 years, Bihar had a genuine problem. Because they had more people on the electoral roll than the adult population.” He, however, argued that the situation had been rectified by 2023 and that the current SIR was “a medicine administered after the patient was cured.” The exercise, he said, “led to the largest ever shrinkage in the history of this country.”He added, “Anything above 100 per cent indicates a problem in the system.”Justice Bagchi remarked, “But 105 per cent is a crisis, not a problem.”Story continues below this adYadav said, “At that point, Bihar had 38 lakh more voters than the adult population. And… the problem has been cured after that. Now it (shortage) is 81 lakhs.”Justice Bagchi pointed out that the deficit includes the 38 lakh excess from the earlier period.Yadav clarified that his objection was not to the ECI’s authority to conduct SIR but “about the nature of revision that is suggested.”“What SIR has done is it has weaponised a very normal and benign process. Three weapons have been included in it. First is systemic exclusion, which is to say if you don’t file your enumeration form by such and such date, you automatically cease to be on draft rolls and all your legal rights can extinguish on that very day which has never happened in this country. There is structural exclusion, which is to say unless you provide these documents, we cannot consider your case. What they have done is in one stroke they have widened the wall as well as raise the height of the wall. There is possibility of targeted exclusion because citizenship is being enquired into for the first time,” he contended.Story continues below this adHe urged the court to direct the ECI to disclose how many persons were identified as foreigners and deleted from the rolls during the revision exercise.Meanwhile, senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi, appearing for the Election Commission, referred to Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), the main petitioner, claiming that a Bihar resident whose name appeared in the draft list was later deleted from the final roll.Refuting the claim, Dwivedi said the individual’s name was never in the draft list because he had failed to submit the enumeration form. He alleged that the affidavit submitted by ADR contained false claims, which “would amount to perjury.”The bench expressed displeasure over this to advocate Prashant Bhushan, who said the affidavit had been handed to him by a responsible person and suggested that the court could ask the state legal services authority to verify its genuineness.Story continues below this adDwivedi pointed out that five days still remained for excluded persons to file appeals and urged the court to issue directions to assist them.In its interim order, the bench said: “Since time to file appeals is running short, we deem it appropriate as an interim measure to request the Executive Chairman, Bihar State Legal Services Authority, to send communication, preferably today itself, to all secretaries of District Legal Services Authorities to provide services of paralegal volunteers, free legal aid counsels to assist excluded persons to file statutory appeals. Secretaries to immediately re-notify mobile numbers and full description of paralegal volunteers in each village, who in turn will contact the Booth Level Officers. They will collect information with respect to persons who have been excluded from the final list. Para Legal Volunteers would reach out to persons, informing them of their right to appeal. They will offer services to draft appeals and provide free legal aid counsel.”The matter will next be heard on October 16.