Election Commission to Bombay High Court: Non-appearance of name in draft SIR does not mean ‘deletion’

The Bombay High Court has reserved its verdict in a petition concerning six family members whose names were deleted from the electoral rolls in the state. Their Form 8 applications for a change of address were rejected. Senior Advocate Ashutosh Kumbhakoni, representing the Election Commission of India (ECI), argued that a name's absence in the draft Special Intensive Revision (SIR) does not equate to deletion.

He explained that the SIR is an extraordinary process where the electoral roll is prepared from the ground up, rather than being updated from an existing roll as in the Special Summary Revision (SSR). According to Kumbhakoni, only those who are enumerated in the draft SIR can appear on the final electoral roll, necessitating the petitioner to submit Form 6 during the claims and objections period.

The High Court questioned why Form 8 is not accepted during the SIR process, to which the ECI counsel explained that the SIR process involves creating a new roll de novo, hence no reference to the previous roll is available. The petitioners had moved to a new house in the same Santa Cruz Assembly constituency and were informed by the Booth Level Officer to submit Form 8 for a change of address.

However, their EPICs were deleted from the rolls, and the only recourse was to use Form 6 for new voters since there was no option in ERONET to restore deleted EPICs.