India’s Supreme Court asks election body to extend Delhi voter-roll deadlines
The court questioned why people missing from Delhi’s draft electoral roll must use a form intended for new voters. The Election Commission agreed to extend the period for claims and enrolment.
India’s Supreme Court asked the Election Commission of India on Wednesday, 28 October, to extend deadlines and simplify enrolment in Delhi’s special intensive revision of electoral rolls, according to The Hindu. The commission agreed to extend the period for claims, objections and enrolment forms, but did not give a revised deadline in the reported hearing.
The intervention matters to Delhi voters whose names are missing from the draft roll: the judges questioned why people who had not submitted an enumeration form were being directed to Form 6, a form intended for new voters. The Hindu reported that the bench distinguished between voters who had shifted constituencies and those temporarily away from their address.
Why the court questioned Form 6
The Hindu reported that the court described Form 6 as ‘cast in stone’ and said Forms 6, 7 and 8 could not themselves be changed. The judges instead pressed the commission for a simpler way for affected voters to seek inclusion, asking it to avoid cut-off dates for applications to be re-included. They gave the commission two weeks to make the necessary changes.
Chief Justice Surya Kant urged the commission to reach out to voters and continue accepting Forms 6 and 7, The Hindu reported. The commission said that exclusions do not occur at the draft-roll stage. The court also noted that no election was then taking place in the national capital.
LawBeat identified the other judges on the bench as Justices Joymalya Bagchi and J.V. Mohana. It reported that the commission would file a report in two weeks. That report and the changes requested by the court are the next steps; neither account established a new closing date for affected voters.
How many Delhi voters were affected
LawBeat reported that about 47.7 lakh names from an existing list of roughly 1.45 crore electors were absent from the draft roll, while the commission said enumeration forms had been collected and uploaded for about 97.51 lakh electors. Advocate Prashant Bhushan told the court that, of 47 lakh people who had not filled in an enumeration form, the commission had classified 43 lakh as permanently shifted and two lakh as dead, according to LawBeat. Those figures describe different parts of the revision and should not be treated as interchangeable counts.
LawBeat said the draft roll was published on 31 August and, under the timetable it described, the final roll was scheduled for 4 November. The commission’s promised extension puts the practical timetable for claims and enrolment in focus, although the hearing reports did not establish a replacement date.
The Hindu also reported a clarification from the bench about a separate voter-roll dispute in Bihar: it had not judicially reviewed the ‘logical discrepancy’ issue there or examined its constitutionality. That point did not resolve the Delhi questions about deadlines and which form existing voters should use.
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Sources and context
- Delhi SIR: Supreme Court asks ECI to extend deadlines, simplify enrolmentThe Hindu (The Hindu Bureau)
- Delhi SIR: Supreme Court Asks ECI To Consider Extending October 30 DeadlineLawBeat (Aishwarya Iyer)
AI-assisted article checked against the listed sources. NewsJaws did not conduct interviews or attend the reported events.