The Supreme Court on Thursday ordered free legal aid for voters excluded from Bihar’s final electoral roll, asking the state’s legal services authority to help affected citizens file appeals against their exclusion.

A bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi declined to pass a blanket order on the inclusions and exclusions arising from the Special Intensive Revision of the state’s rolls. Instead, the court asked the Bihar State Legal Services Authority to deploy paralegal volunteers and free legal aid counsel in every village to assist the roughly 3.66 lakh excluded voters.

The court said each village should have a published list of booth-level officers and paralegal volunteers with contact numbers, and directed the authority to file a status report within a week. The next hearing is scheduled for October 16.

The bench was hearing petitions challenging the revision exercise, which reduced Bihar’s voter count from 7.89 crore to 7.42 crore. The Election Commission has defended the exercise as its constitutional prerogative while the petitioners allege large-scale disenfranchisement.

Bihar votes in two phases on November 6 and 11, with counting on November 14.