New Delhi: The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Thursday informed the Supreme Court that it was “operating in an atmosphere of sharp political hostility” where hardly any of its decisions were not contested as it justified conducting the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in poll-bound Bihar.

A bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi, which prima facie agreed with the powers of the ECI to conduct the SIR exercise, said the manner of doing it has to be reasonable and fair.

“The ECI is at present operating in an atmosphere of sharp political hostility where hardly any of its decisions are not contested. However, it has enough reservoir of power to make certain decisions, including conducting the special intensive revision,” senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi, appearing for the ECI, said.

Dwivedi said the ECI was currently “caught between the struggle of political parties” which saw them call EVMs “bad” when they lost and call EVMs “good” when they won.

“Not my contention that ECI is omnipotent to do whatever it likes. Not my contention that ECI is omnipotent to do whatever it likes. I don’t assume that high pedestal. But, ECI has a reservoir of power under Article 324 and provisions of the Representation of the People’s Act,” he said.

The ECI, he said, was not concerned with the perception of political parties but with legality.

“About perception, we can’t do anything. Political parties will have their own necessities to project a perception to win an election,” he said.

Dwivedi added, “Please see what we are doing and what havoc has been wrought. Some counsel tried to bring in some melodrama to project some individuals without affidavits. We don’t know who they were or from where they came. Your lordships were told they were shown ‘dead’.”

Justice Kant told Dwivedi that the court had forgotten the “scene” and it went by record.

The ECI counsel said of the 7.24 crore forms submitted by the electors, five crore names were scrutinised, and if the court heard the current batch of petitions challenging the June 24 decision to conduct the SIR in Bihar after fifteen days, the poll panel could give better figures.

The bench offered to take the matter to its logical conclusion and said it wasn’t closing it, but asked the ECI why the names of deleted voters were not disclosed with reasons.

It said disclosing names with reasons for non-inclusion would enhance transparency and voters’ confidence in the exercise at a time when certain narratives are being built.

“If you bring it into the public domain, the narrative disappears,” the bench said, as it directed the poll panel to publish the details of 65 lakh voters, whose names featured in earlier electoral rolls but were dropped from the draft roll published on August 1.

Dwivedi, at the start of the hearing, offered to “happily rectify” the “mistake” when it came to the list — given by petitioner Yogendra Yadav and other petitioners — of persons declared dead but were alive in reality.

“Petitioners have tried to project Bihar as a poor state, nothing digital, all flooded, and no certificates available as if it is living in the dark ages,” Dwivedi said. He hailed the state for giving the country its first President and called it the land of enlightenment.

Justice Bagchi weighed in and called Bihar the “birthplace of democracy”.

The bench, however, pointed to the state’s rural areas, where things were said to be difficult.

The top court directed people whose names were deleted from the voter list to stake a claim by approaching the poll officials with an Aadhaar card as proof of identity and termed it as statute-approved proof of identity.

The bench further directed the ECI to publish the list of names of those who have died, migrated or moved to other constituencies to be displayed along with reasons at the panchayat level office and the office of district-level returning officers.

It asked for wide publicity to be given via newspapers, including vernacular and English dailies having large circulation and TV and Radio to the public, informing the people about the places where such lists can be found.

It directed the soft copies of the deleted voters list, which will be uploaded on the district electoral officer website or social media handles, should be searchable by Election Photo Identity Card (EPIC) number, and a compliance report to be filed by August 22.