India's Supreme Court on Wednesday pressed the Election Commission of India (ECI) over large-scale deletions from Delhi's draft electoral rolls, questioning why voters already on the 2026 rolls were being asked to re-register as if they were first-time voters.

The bench, headed by Chief Justice Surya Kant and comprising Justices Joymalya Bagchi and J V Mohana, was hearing challenges linked to the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. The court said it has not finally decided whether the Commission can use the automated "logical discrepancy" category to flag voters, noting that it had been permitted only as an interim arrangement in West Bengal and would be examined in detail later.

Form 6 versus Form 8

At the heart of the hearing was a procedural question with large consequences. The Commission had asked voters whose names were dropped from the draft roll to file Form 6, the form ordinarily used by people registering to vote for the first time. The bench asked why voters already enrolled should not instead be allowed to use Form 8, which covers changes such as a shift of residence.

"Those already on the 2026 roll who merely shifted residence should be allowed to use Form 8, not be made to declare they were never enrolled," the court remarked, according to reports of the proceedings. The bench added that temporary absence is not a shift of residence: being away on work for a month or two does not make an elector "permanently shifted".

"Reach out, don't wait"

The court also questioned how voters who were never served enumeration forms could restore their names, noting that the existing procedure offered them no clear remedy. Given Delhi's large floating population of labourers, hawkers and daily-wage workers, the bench said the burden should not fall entirely on voters to approach the Commission.

"Reach out, don't wait," the court said, directing the Commission to publicise excluded names in simple Hindi and local languages, explaining the consequences of not responding. The Commission told the court it will consider accepting late enumeration forms and will extend the October 30 deadline for claims and objections if needed.

The scale of the deletions

The draft roll published on August 31 excluded 47.57 lakh of Delhi's 1.45 crore registered voters, categorising them as absent, shifted, deceased or duplicate. By October 26, the Commission had disposed of 31.26 lakh of the 33.14 lakh notices issued, and received 2.67 lakh Form 6 applications and 1.01 lakh Form 8 applications. The final roll is due on December 4.

The deletions are not confined to Delhi: 97,37,832 names were removed from Tamil Nadu's draft roll. The Commission says the revision is meant to clean the rolls of deaths, duplicates and shifted voters, while critics argue it risks disenfranchising eligible citizens. The court's intervention keeps the legality of the automated checks open — and puts the onus on the Commission to show that no eligible voter is left out for want of a form.