MUMBAI: The Election Commission of India (ECI) has told the Bombay High Court that the absence of a voter’s name from the draft electoral roll prepared under the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process does not automatically mean the name has been deleted.
The submission came during a hearing on a petition filed by six members of a family from Goa’s St Cruz constituency, who alleged that their names had been omitted from the electoral roll during the revision exercise.
After hearing arguments from the Election Commission and the petitioners, a bench comprising Justices Valmiki Menezes and Amit Jamsandekar reserved its verdict.
Representing the Election Commission, senior advocate Ashutosh Kumbhakoni argued that the SIR process involved preparing electoral rolls afresh through an intensive enumeration exercise. He distinguished it from a Special Summary Revision, which updates an existing electoral roll using information received through the prescribed procedure.
The Election Commission maintained that a name missing from the draft SIR roll should not automatically be treated as a deletion, as the process involves a fresh verification of electoral records.
Kumbhakoni also argued that the petitioner had not been residing at the address mentioned in the earlier electoral roll for eight to ten years and had not applied for an address change before the revision exercise began.
The judges clarified during the hearing that the petition did not challenge the SIR process itself.
Advocate Vivek Rodrigues, representing the petitioner, outlined the sequence of events surrounding the application to update the voter’s address.
According to the petitioner, the enumeration exercise began on November 4, 2025, and a Booth Level Officer visited the voter’s old and new addresses four days later.
When the petitioner approached the officer on November 12 to obtain an enumeration form, he was reportedly informed that the form had to be delivered to the address recorded in the existing electoral roll.
The petitioner subsequently submitted Form 8 to change his address. The Election Commission acknowledged the application on December 8, but the petitioner’s name was missing when the draft electoral roll was published on December 16.
The petitioner argued that the address change application remained under consideration even as the deadline for filing objections to the draft roll approached.
On January 17, 2026, the petitioner received a letter stating that the application had been forwarded to the Electoral Registration Officer. However, the deadline for objections was January 19.
The application was rejected on January 21, leaving the petitioner unable to raise an objection within the prescribed period, the court was told.
The High Court has reserved its verdict after hearing both sides in the dispute involving the six family members from Goa.
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