Can you punish laxity by losing your right to vote forever, ECI Supreme Court asks
The Supreme Court on Wednesday (October 28, 2026) questioned the power of the Election Commission of India (ECI) to strip citizens forever of their right to vote just because they were lax in returning census forms during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls that disenfranchised nearly 13 million voters across the country.
“Let’s say a voter was lax, inactive or did not respond, will that be a reason for you, the Election Commission of India, to lose your right to vote forever? We will answer that,” Justice Joymalya Bagchi, a bench judge headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, told the election body.
The court said the ECI was “erroneous” in forcing pre-existing voters struck off the electoral roll to register as new voters under Form 6 of the Voter Registration Rules, 1960.
The petitioners, activists Anjali Bhardwaj and Amrita Johri, represented by advocates Prashant Bhushan and Neha Rathi, said the ECI is forcing voters to falsely impersonate new applicants, an offense that attracts imprisonment.
“You cannot touch these forms. Form 6, Form 7 (objection to proposed inclusion/deletion of names in the existing electoral roll) and Form 8 (request for change of residence) are cast in stone… You cannot change them,” Justice Bagchi said.
ECI’s senior advocate Dama Seshadri Naidu said the court’s May 27 judgment in the Bihar SIR case had mentioned that the election body had “residual powers”.
Justice Bagchi asked why the ECI did not use these residuary powers to reach out to voters who did not respond to the census forms. “You could have asked for a statement, given them a chance, given them time to explain why they didn’t answer the census forms,” the judge said.
Besides, Justice Bagchi clarified that the Bihar judgment was not a “binding precedent”.
“First and foremost, in Bihar SIR, the EC did not take ‘logical contradiction’ as a category. We allowed you in West Bengal as an interim arrangement… Ultimately we did not decide the legality of ‘logical contradiction’,” Justice Bagchi said for the Bench.
Justice Bagchi asked how voters, included in the electoral roll in 2003 after intensive revision, could be purged in the name of a “logical contradiction” in 2026.
Mr. Bhushan said ECI’s approach to Delhi SIR voters was short sighted.
“It sounded like ‘you were absent from your address when we came with the census form, you are deleted from the electoral roll’. Of the 1,45,10,299 voters in Delhi at the start of SIR, 47,56,722 were marked as not having returned their census forms due to absence, displacement, dead or duplicates.”
The court asked the ECI whether a person who temporarily moved out of Delhi for a month’s assignment and failed to complete his enumeration would be considered “permanently displaced”.
“If a voter has moved from Vasant Kunj to Sarita Vihar, it is not enough for him to simply publish his voter details to continue in the electoral roll,” Chief Justice Kant asked the ECI.
Justice Bagchi said the requirement for voters to apply through Form 6 and Form 7 would arise only after the final list of voters is published and not at the draft stage.
“Why don’t you allow deleted voters to continue to submit their enumeration forms? There is a structural mismatch between your SIR modus operandi and the mode of forms 6 and 7. Why should voters be asked to apply using form 6, they can submit their enumeration forms late… Keep it open. Don’t stick to any timelines for voters. ECI. Bagchi.
Chief Justice Kant asked why the ECI had to rush the SIR in Delhi when there was no election. The last date for submission of applications and objections for inclusion/deletion in the electoral roll of Delhi is 30 October.
“Don’t go by any timeline. Nothing is happening in Delhi,” Chief Justice Kant told Mr Naidu.
Mr. Naidu said the voters were never “wiped out” as they could return to the electoral roll at any time before filing nominations for the election. Assuring to extend the dates, the Solicitor General said the polling authority would look into the possibility of delayed submission of census forms in Delhi.
The court said that physical lists of deleted voters in the vernacular could be posted on every block in Delhi to let people know their status.
“Meanwhile, people applying to vote in Delhi for the first time can apply through Form 6. But pre-existing voters in Delhi who have been deleted as they have changed their residence in the city can file Form 8… If you have any doubts, write to them for verification documents,” ECI Chief Justice Kant suggested.
The CJI gave the ECI two weeks to consider a course correction and advised the probing body that it is often best to go for the “easiest remedy”.
Published – 28 Oct 2026 20:26 IST