The Supreme Court on Wednesday questioned the Election Commission of India over asking voters deleted from Delhi's draft electoral roll to register afresh using Form 6, even though their names had appeared on the 2026 voter list, calling the approach a "structural incongruity" and warning that the right to vote is a vital right that cannot be forfeited lightly.
A bench comprising Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana was hearing petitions filed by Anjali Bharadwaj and Amrita Johri challenging aspects of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Delhi. The hearing turned on a single, sharp question: why should a person who was already a voter be asked to apply as if they had never voted before?
Form 6 is the form used by first-time voters to apply for inclusion in the electoral roll. Applicants using it must declare that they have not been registered as voters before. The court pointed out the obvious difficulty: a deleted voter who was on the 2026 rolls cannot truthfully make that declaration, and the insistence on Form 6 therefore creates a barrier for precisely the people the revision process is supposed to help.
"Why cannot they be allowed to fill enumeration forms or Form 8 instead of Form 6?" the bench asked, referring to the enumeration form that existing voters fill during an SIR and to Form 8, which is used for a change of address or correction of entries. The court also suggested creating a residual category to deal with people who have temporarily shifted, and advised the poll body not to rush the process, noting that Delhi is not going to the polls anytime soon.
The scale of the issue is large. Of Delhi's 1.45 crore voters, around 47 lakh names were struck off the draft voter list during the SIR. Senior Advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for the petitioners, told the court that of the 4.7 million voters excluded from the draft roll, 4.3 million had been classified as "permanently shifted" or "absent".
He argued that many of them had simply not received the enumeration form and were now being asked to submit Form 6, with its declaration that they had never been registered.
The bench pressed the point with a series of questions that went to the heart of the dispute. "The right to vote is a vital right. Your job is to act with due diligence. Let's say the voter was amiss... will that be ground to forfeit the right forever?"
Justice Bagchi asked. "A voter comes and says, please put in these papers. You say, put in Form 6. How does he file Form 6? This is structural incongruity... if he has not filled an enumeration form and draft roll having been published, he has not shifted... will you say the person forever loses the right to come in roll?"
Chief Justice Surya Kant observed that migration is common in metropolitan cities such as Delhi, where people frequently move between localities in search of employment and other opportunities. Many people, the court noted, may not have received enumeration forms because they changed addresses or were temporarily away for work. "Instead of burdening them that they will approach, why don't you reach out to them?" the Chief Justice asked.
The bench also suggested practical steps. It asked the Election Commission to consider extending the October 30 deadline for submitting enumeration forms, if needed, and to publish a list identifying the roughly 43 lakh people it had not been able to contact, so that those voters could be told to approach their nearest booth-level officer and fill Form 8. "You see how to reduce this gap of 43 lakh. We will take up after two weeks," the Chief Justice said.
Senior Advocate Dama Seshadri Naidu, appearing for the Election Commission, responded that the poll body would examine the concerns flagged by the bench and consider remedial measures, including extending the deadline for submitting enumeration forms. Naidu also said the commission would discuss the steps that could be taken to address the issues raised, a response the court welcomed while making clear that it expected concrete action.
The hearing also touched on the legal framework governing the forms themselves. Justice Bagchi told the Election Commission's counsel that Forms 6, 7 and 8 are statutory provisions that "cannot be changed by the poll panel through an administrative order or circular". Form 7 is used to object to the inclusion of a name or to request the deletion of an existing name, while Form 8 deals with change of address or correction of entries.
The poll body, the judge added, has only residual powers to seek certain declarations from voters in case of discrepancies.
Another issue before the court was the "logical discrepancy" category used to scrutinise voter details during the SIR. The bench clarified that it had not yet adjudicated the legality of that category, but had permitted it as an interim arrangement for the Bengal elections earlier this year.
The court said its earlier decision in the Bihar SIR case did not amount to a final determination of every issue arising from the revision exercise, and that the legality of the logical discrepancy category would be examined in detail at a later stage.
The Delhi SIR has been watched closely because it is one of the largest revision exercises in the country, covering a highly mobile, metropolitan electorate. The controversy over deleted voters goes beyond paperwork: it raises fundamental questions about how the state treats citizens whose only fault may be that they moved house, were away at work, or never received a form.
Critics of the process argue that asking existing voters to re-register as new voters reverses the burden of proof, placing it on citizens rather than on the administration. Supporters of a rigorous revision, on the other hand, argue that cleaning the rolls of duplicate, shifted and deceased voters is essential to the integrity of elections.
The court's intervention seeks to hold both concerns together: the rolls must be accurate, but accuracy cannot come at the cost of disenfranchising genuine voters.
For the nearly 47 lakh deleted voters, the practical question is what happens next. The court's suggestions, if adopted, would give them a simpler route back onto the rolls: fill the enumeration form late, or file Form 8 to update an address, rather than declaring themselves first-time voters through Form 6. The Election Commission's willingness to consider extending the deadline and to publish a list of uncontacted voters will be closely watched in the coming days.
The bench will take up the matter again after two weeks. Until then, the message from the court is unambiguous: the right to vote is vital, a voter cannot be deprived of it merely for failing to update electoral details during a revision, and it is the Election Commission's job to reach out to voters rather than to burden them with forms they cannot honestly fill.
(Reporting based on Live Law, The Print and Business Standard.)