Some errors are inevitable in a large exercise such as the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar, the Election Commission told the Supreme Court on Tuesday.
Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for the petitioners, flagged that 12 living voters were wrongly marked ‘dead’ in the draft electoral rolls published by the poll panel on August 1.
Taking note of this, the bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi asked senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi, representing the Commission, how many such voters have been identified as dead.
In response, Dwivedi said this is just a draft roll and such large exercises are bound to have some errors. “Such a large exercise shall have some error here and there. But saying dead is alive etc is not good..,” he said.
Sibal responded saying each booth has this kind of error. “This is not fair,” he said.
On this, the bench said, “Where are the aggrieved persons? Please give us a list. If a person is stated to be dead but is alive, we will take them (ECI) to task.”
Advoacte Dwivedi, however, argued that such errors can be rectified by booth level officers (BLOs). “One need not come to court every third day citing instances of 12 people marked as dead but found alive, or vice versa,” he aaded.