PoliticsCourts
Delhi SIR: Bhushan flags EC's Form 6 advice in Supreme Court, CJI says voters 'need not be apprehensive'
Petitioners say the Election Commission's latest clarification for voters dropped from Delhi's draft roll runs against what the court suggested last week. The Chief Justice asked them to file an application.
Key points
- Prashant Bhushan told the Supreme Court the EC's 3 November Form 6 statement contradicts the court's 28 October suggestions.
- Chief Justice Surya Kant said the matter is pending and people need not be apprehensive.
- The court could ask the EC to extend the deadline; the issue will be heard on 19 November.
Voters struck off Delhi’s draft electoral roll were back before the Supreme Court on Wednesday, after the petitioners told Chief Justice Surya Kant that the Election Commission’s latest advice runs against the court’s own suggestions.
Advocate Prashant Bhushan, mentioning the matter for petitioners Anjali Bhardwaj and Amrita Johri, said the Commission’s statement of 3 November contradicts what the court observed last week. On 28 October the court had said deleted voters whose names were on the 2026 rolls cannot be compelled to register afresh on Form 6, the form for new voters, and should be allowed to use Form 8 or the enumeration form instead.
The Chief Justice said the matter was pending before the court and that people need not be apprehensive. He asked the petitioners to file an application setting out the Commission’s clarification and indicated that the court could ask the Commission to extend the deadline further if needed. The issue will be heard on 19 November.
What the Commission said
In its 3 November clarification to Chief Electoral Officers of all states and Union Territories, the Commission said electors missing from the draft roll may submit Form 6 for inclusion in the final roll even if they were enrolled before. Such a declaration is “not, by itself, false merely because the elector was previously enrolled,” it said, and no action will be taken under Section 31 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, on that ground alone, so long as the person is not enrolled elsewhere.
The Commission relied on the Delhi High Court’s 14 October ruling in Nilotpal Datta v ECI, which found the fear of a false-declaration charge misplaced.
How many voters
About 47.56 lakh Delhi electors were left out of the draft roll under the absent, shifted, dead or duplicate category. The petitioners say about 31.59 lakh of them were marked permanently shifted and 11.73 lakh absent or untraceable.
In a letter to the Chief Election Commissioner on Tuesday, the petitioners asked that Form 8 and enumeration forms be accepted from these voters without insisting on Form 6, that the list of deleted names be made available at booth or block level, and that the process be publicised in Hindi and other languages.