New Delhi, Aug 29 (PTI) The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear on September 8 pleas of the RJD and AIMIM for extending the deadline to file claims and objections in the special intensive revision of electoral rolls in poll-bound Bihar.

The deadline for filing claims and objections is September 1.

A bench of Justices Surya Kant, Joymalya Bagchi and Vipul M Pancholi said it would hear the applications of the political parties on September 8.

"List all the interlocutory applications along with the main matter on September 8," the order said.

Advocate Prashant Bhushan and senior advocate Shoeb Alam, appearing for the Rashtriya Janta Dal (RJD), mentioned to the bench about several parties filing pleas for the extension of the deadline.

Advocate Nizam Pasha, appearing for the AIMIM, sought the extension due to large-scale filing of claims and objections.

"The number of claims filed are exponentially rising. The deadline needs to be extended," Alam said.

Pasha said over 80,000 claims were filed before the August 22 order whereas after the order around 95,000 claims have been filed so far.

"We are requesting that these applications be listed as early as possible," he said.

The bench asked the petitioners why they hadn't approached the Election Commission (EC) for relief.

Bhushan claimed their request was not considered by the EC.

The plea filed by RJD through advocate Fauzia Shakil said in the SIR, the number of polling booths had increased to 90,712 and the party appointed booth level agents (BLAs) in 47,506 polling booths which is approximately 52 per cent of the polling booths.

The party said after the August 22 court order, the claims along with Aadhaar card were collected by the BLAs and despite the acknowledgment of claims by booth level officers (BLO) claims were not lodged and were not reflected on the daily EC status report against the party to portray a wrong narrative that the BLAs of political parties were not cooperating and filing claims.

"Since the last order of this court dated August 22, 2025 which permitted the filing of claims along with Aadhaar card, the number of claims have doubled from 84,305 on August 22, 2025 to 1,78,948 electors on August 27, 2025 in only five days," the RJD said.

The plea alleged across districts, however, in many instances officers refused to accept the claims with the Aadhaar card only and instead insisted on one of the 11 documents mentioned in the ECI order of June 24 in "utter disregard to the orders passed by the court".

Seeking direction to the poll panel for extending the timeline by two weeks and accept the claims of deleted voters till September 15, the RJD said the ECs own daily SIR update showed the number of claims had increased and more than a lakh claims were filed in the last week and 33,349 claims were filed in the last two days.

"The period of filing claims expires on September 1, 2025. Unless extended, genuine electors whose names have been erroneously deleted by the EC will not be able to submit their claims and consequently will be barred from exercising their right to vote in the coming elections. The EC in its manual on electoral rolls has also mentioned that no suo moto deletion shall be done in the election year. In the present case, the period of filing claims, unless extended, will have an impact on the purity of electoral rolls," it added.

The AIMIM in its plea, filed by Akhtarul Iman, said the EC data indicates the court's orders have increased awareness among electors about their exclusion in the draft list and the participation by political parties has led to a larger number of claims and objections being filed in the last one week.

"It is clear that over the course of 22 days, i.e., August 1, 2025 to August 22, 2025, 84,307 claims and objections were filed by the electors directly or through the BLAs of 12 political parties which registered in the state of Bihar. However, after the order dated August 22, 2025 of this court and over the course of a mere five days i.e., till August 27, 2025, 94,694 claims and objections have been filed by the electors directly or through the BLAs of 12 political parties," the plea said.

The party sought extension of timeline to file claims and objections by excluded electors seeking inclusion in the electoral roll of Bihar by a period of four weeks.

On August 22, the top court directed the ECI to allow excluded voters to submit claims through online mode besides making physical submissions in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise of electoral roll in poll-bound Bihar.

On August 14, the top court directed the poll panel to publish by August 19 details of the 65 lakh voters excluded from the draft electoral rolls in poll-bound Bihar to enhance "transparency" in SIR of the voters’ list and allow Aadhaar as an acceptable document for identity proof.

The revision of the voters’ list in Bihar--the first since 2003--has sparked a huge political row. The SIR's findings have reduced the total number of 7.9 crore registered voters in Bihar, from before the exercise, to 7.24 crore. PTI MNL MNL AMK AMK AMK