The draft electoral roll prepared under the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) cannot be used as a basis to delete voters’ names without following the statutory procedure, the Bombay High Court’s Goa bench has said, questioning the Election Commission of India (ECI) over its reliance on electoral software to reject applications.
A division bench of Justice Amit S Jamsandekar and Justice Valmiki Menezes said it was “very perturbed” by the ECI’s claim that its software system left officials with no option but to reject an application.
The court was hearing a petition filed by six members of a family whose names were deleted from the electoral roll after they shifted to a new house within the same Santa Cruz Assembly constituency.
The petitioners, led by Paresh Salgaonkar, said they had submitted Form 8, as directed by the Booth Level Officer, to update their address. However, while processing the applications, officials found that their Electors Photo Identity Card (EPIC) details were no longer available in the ERONET system.
ERONET, or Electoral Registration Officers’ Network, is the ECI’s web-based system for processing electoral forms and managing voter rolls.
As the system showed no EPIC record, officials could only select the “reject” option, the petitioners said.
They were subsequently informed that their EPICs had been deleted from the electoral rolls and that their Form 8 applications could not be processed.
The family was then asked to submit Form 6, which is meant for fresh inclusion of names in the electoral roll. The petitioners argued that this was inappropriate as they were existing voters seeking only a change of address within the same constituency.
The bench agreed, observing that the statutory forms would lose their purpose if voters could be deleted through the draft roll and then forced to apply afresh.
“Otherwise, Form 6, 7 or 8 have no meaning,” the court said, noting that the forms cater to new voters, deletion-related requests and voters shifting residence.
Questioning the ECI's reliance on ERONET, the bench said, “He was never a new voter. He was an existing voter. He became new for your system.”
The judges also questioned the ECI on the legal provision that allowed voter names to be deleted without giving the affected person an opportunity to be heard.
“Show us from the Act…what empowers you to delete without hearing?” the bench asked.
The court said officials appeared to have relied on the software rather than applying their own judgment.
“Your officers were helpless, and they just decided to throw it on the system. So, they recorded it in the order, saying that the system has rejected. We are very perturbed by this,” the bench said.
The judges stressed that statutory law cannot be overridden by an administrative software system and said that upon receiving a Form 8 application, authorities must independently examine whether the voter had actually shifted residence.
The bench also expressed concern over the wider implications of such deletions, saying the issue could affect a large number of voters who had changed residences.
“Here there is only one family. Take a situation where there are so many people who have shifted residence,” the court observed.
(With inputs from PTI)