The Bombay High Court’s Goa bench has questioned the Election Commission of India (ECI) over the deletion of voters’ names during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), making it clear that electoral software cannot take precedence over the law.
The court was hearing a petition concerning members of a family from Santa Cruz whose names were removed from the electoral rolls after they shifted to another house within the same Assembly constituency.
A division bench of Justices Amit S Jamsandekar and Valmiki Menezes questioned the ECI’s explanation that its ERONET software did not allow officials to process the family’s applications for a change of address. The court expressed concern over a situation in which officials appeared to have relied on the software instead of following the statutory procedure.
The petition was filed by Paresh Salgaonkar and his family members. According to the petitioners, they had moved to a new residence within the same constituency and were advised by a Booth Level Officer to submit Form 8 to update their address.
Form 8 is used by existing voters for changes such as shifting residence. However, when the family’s applications were processed, their Electors Photo Identity Card (EPIC) details were reportedly not available in ERONET, the Election Commission’s online system for processing electoral forms and maintaining voter-roll records.
The petitioners said the system effectively left officials with only a “reject” option. They were later informed that their names had already been removed from the electoral rolls and were asked to submit Form 6 to have their names included again.
The family objected to this requirement, arguing that they were not new voters. They had already been registered and were only seeking to update their address within the same constituency.
The bench questioned how an existing voter could be treated as a new elector simply because the software did not permit the Form 8 application to be processed.
“He was never a new voter. He was an existing voter. He became new for your system,” the court observed.
The judges also questioned the legal basis for deleting a voter’s name 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 also said that authorities must independently examine a Form 8 application and determine whether the voter had actually shifted residence rather than relying solely on the software.
The court further observed that a draft electoral roll prepared during the SIR cannot itself become the basis for removing an existing voter without following the required legal process.
The judges expressed concern that the problem could affect more people who had changed residences but were unable to update their electoral details because of limitations in the system.
“Here there is only one family. Take a situation where there are so many people who have shifted residence,” the bench observed.
The ECI’s counsel told the court that the system did not permit Form 8 applications to be processed during the relevant stage of the SIR exercise and that the deletions were based on inputs received from Booth Level Officers. The Commission has maintained that the SIR process was being carried out according to the prescribed procedure.
The High Court’s observations have brought renewed focus on the relationship between the Election Commission’s digital systems and the statutory procedures governing voter registration and deletion.
