Supreme Court Questions the Basis for Voter Deletions

India’s Supreme Court has clarified that it has not yet ruled on whether the Election Commission of India can use “logical discrepancy” as a ground for deleting voters from electoral rolls. During a hearing on petitions challenging the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in Delhi, the court said its earlier judgment on Bihar’s voter revision did not settle the legality of this practice.

A three-judge bench led by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, alongside Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V. Mohana, asked the Election Commission to consider allowing voters who missed the enumeration deadline to submit their forms. The bench also urged the poll body to accommodate people who had temporarily left Delhi or moved to another address within the capital.

The Commission agreed to examine the suggestions and indicated that it would extend the October 30 deadline for submitting claims and objections. The court, however, did not issue a formal order extending the deadline.

Questions Over the Election Commission’s Screening Process

The dispute centres on how the Election Commission identifies discrepancies in voter records. Its initial orders launching the SIR in Bihar on June 24, 2025, and subsequent orders extending the exercise to other states in October 2025 and May 2026, did not explicitly list “logical discrepancy” as a ground for action.

As the revision progressed, the Commission introduced centralised software to flag inconsistencies between electoral roll entries and documents submitted by voters.

In the second phase, covering nine states and three Union Territories, officials identified categories that included voters with six or more siblings, spelling differences in the names of voters or their parents, and unusual age gaps between parents and children. The number of categories later expanded from six to 11.

Justice Bagchi questioned whether creating automated patterns amounted to proper scrutiny by a human authority. He stressed that the court had permitted the use of logical discrepancy as an interim arrangement in West Bengal but had not delivered a final ruling on its legality.

He also questioned how entries in the 2003 electoral rolls, prepared after an earlier intensive revision, could be reopened on the basis of discrepancies identified decades later.

The bench warned against treating the Bihar judgment as a blanket approval of every measure adopted during subsequent revisions. The legality of using logical discrepancy remains open for judicial examination.

Millions of Voters Affected in Delhi

Advocate Prashant Bhushan, representing the petitioners, cited figures from an Election Commission press note issued on Tuesday. According to the figures presented in court, Delhi had 1,45,10,299 registered electors when the SIR began.

The Commission said enumeration forms were distributed to all registered electors between June 30 and August 17, 2026. By the deadline, 97,53,577 voters had submitted their forms.

A further 47,56,722 electors had not returned their forms, with the Commission attributing the cases to categories such as absent, shifted, deceased or duplicate voters.

Bhushan also said that 19,34,243 electors from the draft electoral roll had received notices over logical discrepancies identified by the system. He argued that the Commission had not clearly defined what constituted a logical discrepancy in its documents.

The figures have placed the screening process under scrutiny, particularly over how voters can challenge discrepancies and protect their registration.

Court Urges ECI to Make the Process Accessible

The bench highlighted the challenges faced by residents of a large city such as Delhi, where people frequently change addresses or leave temporarily for work and personal commitments.

Chief Justice Surya Kant questioned the assumption that a voter would still live at the address recorded during the previous revision. He suggested that the Election Commission should take steps to reach affected voters instead of placing the entire burden on them.

The judges also questioned the use of Form 6, generally intended for new voter registration, when dealing with people whose names had appeared on earlier electoral rolls. Justice Bagchi said voters who had moved within Delhi should be allowed to use Form 8 to update their addresses.

The Chief Justice urged the Commission to issue public notices in newspapers and online, clarifying that eligible voters could continue submitting Forms 6 and 8 while the matter remained under consideration.

The Election Commission told the court that it would discuss the proposed measures with its officials and report back within two weeks.

Final Decision Still Pending

The Supreme Court has listed the matter for another hearing after two weeks. Until then, the central legal question remains unresolved: whether logical discrepancy can lawfully justify action against a voter’s registration.

The court expects the Election Commission to make the claims process accessible and address the concerns raised by voters who missed the enumeration deadline. The next hearing could provide further clarity on the Commission’s powers, the safeguards available to electors and the legal limits of the ongoing revision exercise.