New Delhi, Sept. 2 -- The Supreme Court on Monday noted the Election Commission of India's (ECI) statement that although the statutory deadline for claims in Bihar's ongoing electoral roll revision formally ended on September 1, applications for inclusion, deletion and correction could continue to be made and would be integrated into the rolls up to the last date of nominations. A bench of justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi also recorded a submission made by ECI through senior counsel Rakesh Dwivedi that claims and objections can be submitted even after the deadline of September 1 and that they will be considered after the electoral roll has been finalised. "In light of this stand, let the filing of the claims/objections/corrections continue," stated the bench, even as it did not formally extend the September 1 deadline by two weeks, as pressed by the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) in its plea. The court also directed deployment of paralegal volunteers to bridge the gap in voter assistance. It requested the executive chairman of the Bihar State Legal Services Authority to issue directions by September 2 to notify paralegal volunteers at the district level, complete with names and mobile numbers, to help voters and parties file claims or objections online. These volunteers will route their reports through district judges, who will compile the data for the state legal services authority. The RJD, in its application, asked the court to direct ECI to extend the claims period by two weeks, till September 15, citing the sharp rise in applications from excluded voters. During the Monday hearing, advocate Prashant Bhushan and senior counsel Shoeb Alam, appearing for the RJD, pressed for an extension and argued that Aadhaar should be treated not just as proof of identity and residence but also as a declaration of citizenship. "This court said Aadhaar will also be accepted by ECI," said Bhushan, adding that transparency was lacking since uploaded documents were not publicly visible online. The bench, however, retorted: "We cannot enhance the status of Aadhaar despite the legal pronouncements by the Constitution bench in the KS Puttaswamy judgment (2017) and Section 9 of the Aadhaar Act. Whatever value can be attached to Aadhaar statutorily, that has to be accepted." Section 9 states that Aadhaar is only proof of identity, and not of citizenship. Dwivedi, representing ECI, reported that 99.5% of Bihar's 72.4 million electors had already filed at least one valid document. He added that notices were being issued within seven days wherever deficiencies were found. Dwivedi said, "By September 25, verification of documents will complete. We are issuing notices as and when any deficiency is being noted in the documents of proposed voters." He also pointed out the low level of participation by political parties, noting that RJD had filed only 10 claims through booth-level agents, all of which were under process, while CPI (ML) had filed over 100 exclusions but "just a handful for inclusions." Out of the 6.5 million names excluded from the draft rolls, Dwivedi said, only about 33,000 individual inclusion forms and 25 from parties had been submitted. "What's really bothering us is -- parties could come up with only 120 cases?" the bench remarked. While Bhushan alleged "the problem is with transparency," Dwivedi countered, "The problem is with the mindset and they want to disrupt." Senior counsel Gopal Sankaranarayanan urged the court to clarify that Aadhaar could be submitted even by those receiving deficiency notices now, not just the 6.5 million initially excluded. The bench reiterated that Aadhaar "will have its value under the law and regulations" and asked petitioners to flag specific instances of non-acceptance later. With ECI assuring that the filing process would remain open in practice, the bench declined to extend the statutory deadline but sought to strengthen voter facilitation through paralegal assistance. It also directed political parties and petitioners to submit affidavits on issues raised in hearings, particularly on disputes around acceptance of claims and objections. The order came after weeks of sparring in court over the special intensive revision (SIR) of Bihar's electoral rolls, which saw nearly 6.5 million names excluded in the draft rolls published last month. Opposition parties, including the RJD, have accused the Commission of disenfranchising voters and demanded more time for corrections, while ECI has defended the exercise as necessary after nearly two decades without intensive updating. On August 22, the Supreme Court had clarified that claims could be filed using Aadhaar or any of the 11 approved identity documents, stressing that electoral roll preparation was "not a mere administrative formality but a process with direct implications for a citizen's franchise." Despite appointing over 1.6 lakh booth-level agents, the bench had also noted that political parties filed only a handful of claims, a fact that again drew sharp comment on Monday. "We would have appreciated that submission had the parties come up with thousands of forms. It is surprising that political parties are asking for exclusions," it observed after Alam argued that the number of claims have sharply increased after the August 22 order on applying with Aadhaar. The controversy over SIR has emerged as a flashpoint ahead of the Bihar assembly elections later this year, with the INDIA bloc alleging an attempt to skew the rolls, and the Commission urging parties to "assist genuine voters instead of staging demonstrations."...