The Supreme Court will continue hearing various petitions in the Bihar State Identification Register (SIR) case on August 14. A bench headed by Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi is presiding over the matter.
Justice Surya Kant Urges Respect for Bihar’s Contributions
During the proceedings, Justice Surya Kant advised the petitioner’s counsel not to make disparaging remarks about Bihar.
“Even today, Bihar produces the highest number of IAS officers,” he remarked.
Senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, representing the petitioners, argued that the SIR includes 11 specified documents that most voters in Bihar do not possess. He pointed out that the voter ID card — which he described as the best identity proof — is excluded from the list, while Aadhaar, held by almost everyone, is also missing.
Singhvi highlighted that only 1–2% of Bihar voters have passports, though the state still has 3.6 million passport holders. He noted that residence certificates are scarce, and property documents are unattainable for those without land. He suggested that credit cards could have been a viable option.
The bench clarified that the law does not prevent a 50-year-old from obtaining a certificate. Justice Surya Kant questioned the urgency of introducing such a system in July but stressed that requiring all 11 documents would be ‘anti-voter’.
Instead, he said, allowing voters to submit any one reliable document from the list is in their interest.
Singhvi disagreed, arguing that while the number of documents is high, their coverage among the population is low. The court reiterated that Aadhaar alone does not prove Indian citizenship and cannot serve as a conclusive nationality certificate without verification.
Advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), informed the court that details of 6.5 million removed voters were taken off the website following a press conference by Rahul Gandhi.
The court said it was unaware of the press event. Bhushan urged the court to order the publication of the removed voters’ list online.
Justice Bagchi, responding to Singhvi’s earlier claim, said the number of available documents works in favour of voters rather than against them, as there are multiple ways to establish citizenship.
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