Supreme Court Questions Election Commission Over Deleting Voters For Missing Forms

The Supreme Court on Wednesday questioned the Election Commission of India about its power to permanently strip citizens of their voting rights just because they failed to return enumeration forms during the special intensive revision of electoral rolls. This revision process has affected nearly thirteen crore voters across the country.

Court Objections

A Bench led by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi told the poll body that being slow or unresponsive does not justify taking away the right to vote forever. The judges stated that the Election Commission made a mistake by forcing older voters, who were removed from the voter list, to apply again as new applicants using Form 6 of the Registration of Electors Rules of 1960. Activists Anjali Bhardwaj and Amrita Johri, through their lawyers Prashant Bhushan and Neha Rathi, argued that the poll body was forcing citizens to falsely present themselves as new applicants, which is a punishable offense. Justice Bagchi emphasized that forms six, seven, and eight cannot be altered because they are legally fixed.

Delhi Revision Issues

Lawyer Dama Seshadri Naidu, representing the Election Commission, pointed to an earlier Bihar judgment to claim the poll body has extra powers. Justice Bagchi replied that the Bihar ruling was not a binding legal precedent and noted that voters from the year 2003 should not be removed in 2026 under the label of logical discrepancies. Mr. Bhushan pointed out that out of one crore forty-five lakh voters in Delhi at the start of the revision, over forty-seven lakh were marked as missing because they did not return their forms due to being absent, shifted, dead, or duplicate entries. Chief Justice Kant asked why the poll body rushed the Delhi revision when no elections are scheduled, noting the deadline for claims was set for October 30. Mr. Naidu eventually assured the court that the poll body would extend the dates and look into allowing delayed submissions of forms in Delhi.

Context

Electoral rolls are the official lists of registered voters kept by election authorities to make sure only eligible citizens cast their ballots during polls. The Special Intensive Revision is a thorough house-to-house check usually carried out by election officials to clean up voter lists by removing dead or shifted voters and adding new ones. The Supreme Court often steps in during such large-scale administrative exercises to protect citizen voting rights and ensure that proper due process is followed.