New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday asked the Election Commission why people struck off Delhi's draft electoral roll are being made to apply as first-time voters, when many of them were on the 2026 rolls and had only changed address or been away from home. A bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice V Mohana was hearing petitions by transparency activists Anjali Bhardwaj and Amrita Johri.
Form 6, the bench noted, requires an applicant to declare that he or she has never been enrolled as a voter. Asking someone who was on the 2026 roll to sign that, Justice Bagchi said, amounts to compelling a false declaration. "Form 6, Form 7 and Form 8 are cast in stone. You cannot change them," he said, adding that the commission could instead seek a declaration on why an enumeration form went unfilled.
"The right to vote is a vital right," he said. "Let us say a voter was lax and did not respond. Will that be a ground to forfeit the right forever?"
The numbers before the court: Delhi had 1,45,10,299 electors when the revision began. Of them, 97,53,577 submitted enumeration forms and 47,56,722 did not. Within that group, 31,59,213 were classified as permanently shifted and 19,34,243 were flagged for "logical discrepancy", a category that did not exist when the Bihar revision began. The draft roll was published on August 31.
Advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for the petitioners, argued that 43 lakh of those deleted were treated as shifted and denied Form 8, which exists for address changes. Senior advocate D S Naidu appeared for the commission and said the authorities would examine the court's suggestions.
The bench clarified that its Bihar judgment is not a binding precedent on this point. "In Bihar, the commission had not used logical discrepancy as a category. We permitted it in West Bengal as an interim arrangement. We have not finally adjudicated on its legality," Justice Bagchi said. The court also asked whether flagging voters through software patterns amounted to an application of mind by a human agency.
Chief Justice Kant pointed to Delhi's migrant workforce. "Instead of putting the burden on them to approach you, why don't you reach out to them?" he asked, suggesting that lists of the deleted be published and displayed at booths in Hindi and English.
The commission agreed to consider the suggestions and assured the court orally that the October 30 deadline for claims and objections would be extended. The bench did not pass an order on the deadline, saying it expected the commission to act on its own, and posted the matter for hearing after two weeks. The final roll is now due on December 4.