New Delhi, Aug. 7 -- The Supreme Court on Wednesday directed the Election Commission of India (ECI) to file a reply by August 9 in response to allegations that over 6.5 million names were deleted from Bihar's draft electoral rolls without transparency during the special intensive revision (SIR) exercise. A bench of justices Surya Kant, Ujjal Bhuyan and N Kotiswar Singh issued the directive while hearing an application filed by the Association for Democratic Reforms, which claimed ECI failed to disclose who the deleted voters were and whether they were deceased or had migrated. Advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for ADR, submitted that the draft list lacked crucial information. "Moreover, political parties were not given access to the lists at the block level," he said. The bench asked ECI whether the draft rolls were circulated to political parties prior to publication.P6...