Can’t stop SIR, will set it aside if found illegal: Supreme Court

A bench of justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi made the remarks while adjourning till October 7 the hearing of a batch of petitions challenging SIR, including the one being carried out in election-bound Bihar. Petitioners, led by civil society groups and opposition parties, had pressed for an urgent hearing before October 1, the date of publication of the final voters’ list in Bihar, but the court refused, explaining that the pending Dussehra vacation would not make such scheduling feasible.

“The publication of the final voter list will not make any difference to our adjudication. If we are satisfied that there is illegality, we can intervene regardless of the list having been finalised,” the bench observed, responding to submissions by advocate Prashant Bhushan for NGO Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), who alleged that ECI was ignoring its own manuals by not publishing objections received.

Senior counsel Abhishek Manu Singhvi, Gopal Sankaranarayanan and advocate Vrinda Grover also sought an early hearing, warning that the assembly elections are due to be notified in mid-October and pressing that the exercise not be allowed to continue unchecked. The bench, however, reiterated that the matter would be taken up on October 7, the earliest non-miscellaneous day available after the Dussehra recess.