NEW DELHI: Unsuccessful in stalling the SIR of Bihar electoral roll, the counsel for petitioners on Friday chose to argue the constitutional validity of Election Commission’s decision to conduct a pan-India SIR and told SC that the challenge to the validity of CEC and other ECs (Appointment, Conditions of Officer and Terms of Office) Act, 2023, can wait.When advocate Prashant Bhushan and senior counsel Kapil Sibal sought urgent hearing of pleas questioning the legality of SIR, a bench of CJI-designate Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi told them that it fix the hearing on Nov 11, when the petitions challenging the law on CEC/EC appointments are also listed.“We can take up only one of these two long hearing matters,” SC said and asked the counsel to choose between the two issues for priority hearing. Bhushan said though petitions challenging the constitutional validity of CEC appointment law are important, SIR scored over it as the issue related to sanctity of electoral roll goes to the root of democracy.SC said on Nov 12, it is also scheduled to hear two long matters – one related to the litigation between Tamil Nadu and Kerala over Mullapiyar dam’s safety, and the other, on claim over Shiv Sena’s election symbol between parties led by Eknath Shinde & Uddhav Thackeray.Sibal said he is appearing for a TMC MP who has challenged the SIR in Bengal. Bhushan said though EC had agreed before SC that they would accept Aadhaar as one of the documents of identity of voters, EC is sticking to the 12 documents it had originally specified for Bihar SIR for accepting a person as a voter in the pan-India exercise.
