New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday sought the Election Commission of India's response to a petition alleging large-scale deletion of voters from Maharashtra's electoral rolls during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise, while declining to immediately extend the deadline for filing claims and objections.
A three-judge bench comprising Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V. Mohana issued notice to the poll body on a petition filed by Arun Anandagiri, who alleged that 33 per cent of voters had been struck off the state's electoral rolls during the revision exercise.
The court, however, did not grant the petitioner's request to extend the deadline for claims and objections on Monday. The bench said it would consider extending the date if, after hearing the matter, it found that more time was required. The case is scheduled to be heard next on November 5, by which time the Election Commission has been asked to respond.
The hearing brought into sharp focus the human cost of the revision exercise in Maharashtra, India's second-most populous state, where the petitioner claimed that the scale of deletions was unprecedented. Senior Advocate Arvind Datar, appearing for the petitioner, told the bench that out of roughly nine crore voters in the state, about a third had been struck off completely.
In parts of Pune and Mumbai, he submitted, as many as 40 per cent of voters were missing from the rolls.
Datar also told the court that 1.22 crore names had been deleted on account of what the revision exercise described as logical discrepancies, a category that has become one of the most contested features of the SIR process. The deletions, he argued, were not the result of voters having died or moved away permanently, but of mismatches in records that could have innocent explanations.
A central theme of the petitioner's argument was the displacement caused by urban redevelopment. Datar informed the bench that around 3,500 redevelopment projects were underway in Mumbai and Pune, with old housing societies being demolished and thousands of residents being relocated.
According to the petitioner, such displacement could put voters at risk of losing their names from the electoral rolls if their current address or other details could not be matched during the revision process.
The argument struck at a practical difficulty in the revision exercise. When a building is demolished and its residents scatter to temporary accommodation, their address on record may no longer match the address where they actually live. If the verification process cannot reconcile the two, the voter can simply disappear from the rolls, even though they remain fully entitled to vote.
Datar submitted that this was precisely what was happening on a large scale in Maharashtra's two biggest cities.
The petitioner also questioned the use of Form 6 for voters who were already enrolled in previous elections. Form 6 is the application form used by first-time voters seeking inclusion in the electoral roll. Datar argued that asking existing voters, whose names had been deleted, to fill Form 6 was incorrect, because the form is meant for registration of new voters, not for voters who are already enrolled.
The point carried a sharper edge than a mere procedural objection. Datar submitted that an existing voter who files Form 6, declaring themselves a new applicant, could technically be committing an offence by filing a false declaration. There was, he said, no form designed for deleted voters seeking restoration, and only Form 6 was available to them.
"There is no form for deleted voters, and only Form 6 is there. If I file Form 6 as an existing voter, it is an offence because I am filing a false form," Datar told the bench. He added that while the Delhi High Court had said deleted voters need not worry about prosecution, that assurance may not be enough, and urged the court to direct that a new form be created for such voters.
Chief Justice Surya Kant sought to allay that fear directly during the hearing. "Nobody will be prosecuted," the Chief Justice said, while hearing the petition challenging the SIR in Maharashtra. The assurance was aimed at voters whose names were deleted during the revision and who now wish to reapply for inclusion in the rolls.
The bench also engaged with the petitioner's plea for more time. Datar sought an extension of the deadline for filing claims and objections so that people would have more time to seek inclusion in the rolls, and also sought a stay on the finalisation of the voter list until the court hears the matter.
The court refused to grant any extension on Monday, but assured the counsel that it would hear the case soon and, if it seemed that an extension was needed, would issue directions accordingly.
Datar also urged the court not to allow the electoral roll to be finalised in haste. "Let them not finalise the electoral roll now because Maharashtra does not have any immediate elections. If 33 per cent of people have been deleted, it may take some time to bring them back," he submitted. The submission pointed to a practical argument: since no election is immediately due in the state, there was no urgency that justified closing the door on affected voters.
The petition challenges the SIR process currently underway in Maharashtra pursuant to the Election Commission's order dated May 14, 2026. It seeks a declaration that the revision process is arbitrary, unconstitutional and violative of Articles 14, 19(1)(a) and 21, read with Articles 324 and 326 of the Constitution.
The petitioner has also sought a writ of mandamus or other appropriate directions to prevent the revision of electoral rolls in Maharashtra from being carried out in the manner currently being followed under the May 14 order.
The Supreme Court's decision to issue notice means the Election Commission will now have to explain its position on the deletions before the next hearing. The bench's remarks during the hearing suggested it was taking the petitioner's concerns seriously. Addressing the petitioner, Chief Justice Kant said, "You are a whistleblower. You have come to us. We will take care of the rest."
The Maharashtra case is part of a wider national debate over the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls, an exercise the Election Commission has undertaken in several states. The revision involves a door-to-door verification of voters, and has generated controversy over the scale of deletions, the treatment of voters whose documents do not match, and the procedures available to those who find their names missing.
Critics of the exercise argue that large-scale deletions risk disenfranchising genuine voters, particularly the poor, migrants and residents of redeveloped urban areas whose paperwork may not reflect their current circumstances.
Supporters of the revision, including the poll body, maintain that cleaning up the rolls is necessary to remove duplicate, dead and shifted voters, and that adequate opportunities are provided for genuine voters to restore their names through claims and objections.
The figures cited in the Maharashtra petition will now be tested against the Election Commission's own data when it files its response. The claim that a third of the state's voters have been deleted, if borne out, would represent one of the largest single revisions of an electoral roll in the country's history.
Even if the final figure turns out to be lower after claims and objections are processed, the hearing has already put the revision process under the court's close scrutiny.
For the voters affected, the immediate question is practical: how do they get their names back, and by when. The court's refusal to extend the deadline on Monday means the existing schedule stands for now, but the bench's indication that it may revisit the question after hearing the matter leaves the door open. The assurance against prosecution for deleted voters filing Form 6 removes at least one source of anxiety for those seeking restoration.
The next hearing on November 5 will be watched closely, not only in Maharashtra but in other states where similar revision exercises are underway or planned. The court's approach in this case could shape how the Election Commission conducts revisions elsewhere, and what safeguards it must build in for voters who risk being left out through no fault of their own.
As the matter now moves to the Election Commission for its response, the central questions remain: how many of Maharashtra's voters have genuinely been deleted, how many of those deletions can be justified, and what mechanism will ensure that every eligible citizen who was wrongly struck off finds their way back onto the rolls before the next election.
(Reporting based on The Indian Express, Times Now, Mathrubhumi and ANI.)