The Supreme Court on Friday directed the Election Commission of India to examine the factual aspects of alleged irregularities in the bulk submission of Form 7 applications during the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls in Uttar Pradesh, and to take necessary corrective steps and file a compliance report.
A bench comprising Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana was hearing applications in pleas challenging the revision exercises in Uttar Pradesh, Kerala and Chhattisgarh. The petitioners in the Uttar Pradesh matter include Congress MP Tanuj Punia and Samajwadi Party leader Arvind Kumar Singh.
Form 7 is the form filed by a person seeking the deletion of a voter's name from the draft electoral roll, or objecting to the inclusion of a name. The controversy in the Uttar Pradesh case concerns applications said to have been filed in bulk, raising questions about whether genuine voters could have been wrongly targeted for deletion.
During the hearing, counsel for the applicants submitted that on August 5 the court had directed the Election Commission to file a response within two weeks on an interim application concerning the submission of Form 7 applications before booth level officers. Senior Advocate Dama Seshadri Naidu, appearing for the Election Commission, told the court that a counter-affidavit had been filed and that the allegations had been examined.
According to the Commission, the bulk Form 7 applications were found to be false and were not acted upon. Naidu told the court that the Commission's officers had checked and cross-checked the forms. He said the Commission could examine further claims once a formal complaint was filed, and invited the petitioners to file one if there was any truth in their allegations.
The petitioners, however, disputed the Commission's account. Their counsel submitted that in one constituency, 32 Form 7 applications were submitted targeting members of one particular community, and that two of those forms bore the signature of booth level officers.
The counsel argued that there were material inconsistencies and irreconcilable facts in the Commission's affidavit, and that the absence of corrective steps during the Uttar Pradesh revision had emboldened similar practices elsewhere.
The counsel further alleged that similar complaints in Telangana and Karnataka had led to directions for the registration of first information reports, while no such action had been taken in Uttar Pradesh, describing the pattern as an orchestrated effort. These are the petitioners' allegations, and the court has made no finding on them.
The bench ultimately directed the petitioners' counsel to furnish a note detailing the unresolved issues to the Election Commission's senior counsel. The court's order said that on receipt of the note, the Commission shall examine the factual aspects, carry out necessary corrections and file a compliance report.
In practical terms, the direction creates a structured process: the petitioners must put their remaining complaints in writing, the Commission must examine each of them on facts, and the court will be informed of what was done.
The hearing also dealt with the revision exercises in Kerala and Chhattisgarh. In the Kerala matter, the court was told that several persons could not submit enumeration forms because of a shortage of time. The bench directed the petitioners to furnish details of such persons to the Commission, which shall consider them sympathetically and submit a report.
The Chief Justice observed that correction of the rolls is a continuing process and that there was no need to extend the deadline, since those left out erroneously could still approach the Commission through representations. The court said it would keep the matter pending and ask the authorities to examine representations brought to their notice.
On Chhattisgarh, it was pointed out that no counter-affidavit had been filed even though notice had been issued months earlier. The Commission's counsel said the revision process in Kerala and Chhattisgarh was essentially over, and the matters had become largely infructuous, except for the specific grievances now being routed through representations.
The Special Intensive Revision is a door-to-door exercise to update electoral rolls, verifying the entries of existing voters and adding eligible new voters. It has been one of the most closely watched administrative exercises in recent years because the accuracy of the rolls directly affects who can vote. Supporters of the exercise say it is necessary to remove duplicate, shifted and deceased voters and to keep the rolls clean.
Critics have raised concerns about the pace of implementation and about whether genuine voters, particularly in vulnerable communities, could be excluded by mistake or by design.
The Supreme Court had earlier upheld the legality of the revision exercise while making clear that it does not empower the Election Commission to decide questions of citizenship. That distinction has remained central to the litigation: the Commission can verify entries on the rolls, but the determination of citizenship is a separate legal question governed by its own process.
The Form 7 issue sits at the heart of the latest dispute because deletion applications, if filed in bulk and without proper verification, could in principle remove large numbers of names before the affected voters realise what has happened. The safeguards in the process are therefore important. Under the rules, a deletion claim must be verified by the electoral registration officer, and the person whose name is proposed for deletion is entitled to be heard.
The petitioners' case is that these safeguards were not properly applied in the instances they have flagged, while the Commission's case is that the forms were screened, found false and not acted upon.
Friday's order does not decide which account is correct. Instead, it sets up a fact-checking exercise with a reporting obligation. That approach is consistent with how the court has handled the revision litigation so far: rather than halting the exercise, it has pushed the Commission to address specific complaints and to report back.
The compliance report will therefore be watched closely, both by the petitioners and by political parties across the spectrum, because it will show how many of the flagged cases involved genuine errors and what corrections were made.
The political stakes are high. Uttar Pradesh is the country's most populous state, and its electoral rolls run into crores of names. Even small percentage errors can translate into large absolute numbers, and allegations of targeted deletions can quickly become politically charged. That is why the court has insisted on a documented process, with written complaints and a written compliance report, rather than leaving the matter to oral assurances.
For ordinary voters, the practical message from Friday's hearing is that the correction process remains open. The Chief Justice's observation that roll correction is a continuing process means that a person who finds their name wrongly deleted, or who could not submit a form in time, can still approach the authorities through a representation.
The court has also kept the matters pending, which means it retains the ability to intervene again if the compliance report shows that complaints were not properly addressed.
The next steps are now clear. The petitioners will hand over their note of unresolved issues to the Commission's counsel. The Commission will examine the factual aspects, carry out necessary corrections and file its compliance report.
The court will then consider that report in the ongoing proceedings. Until then, the dispute over bulk Form 7 applications remains an open question of fact, to be resolved not by assertion on either side but by the examination the court has now ordered.
(Reporting based on Live Law, Deccan Herald and Bar and Bench.)