NEW DELHI: In a relief to over 43 lakh voters excluded from Delhi’s draft electoral rolls for ‘permanently shifting out’, Supreme Court on Wednesday asked Election Commission not to stop adding names in the voter list by the Oct 30 deadline and told it to continue distributing and receiving enumeration forms, and Forms 6 (new voters), 7 (for deletion) and 8 (for those who shifted from one constituency to another).A bench of CJI Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana also questioned EC on why voters whose names were there on earlier electoral rolls but were deleted from the draft rolls were asked to file Form 6, which is meant for enrolment of first-time voters.Without passing any order, the bench said, “We will examine the issue after two weeks. The effort should be to reduce the 43 lakh (who have been deleted from draft rolls). One suggestion — publish the list of those who are deleted and specify the reason for deletion against each name. Request them to contact the nearest BLO and fill Form 8. You can give them enumeration forms. Tell them that they are welcome to fill either Form 6 or 8.”
How can you insist on Form 6 for person who was voter earlier: SC
During the proceedings on a PIL filed by activist Anjali Bhardwaj, the bench heard advocate Prashant Bhushan’s complaints against EC for insisting on filling Form 6 by those whose names got excluded and, thereby, compelling them to give a false declaration that they were first-time voters.The bench said, “Right to vote is a vital right. If a person has shifted out from Vasant Kunj to Dwarka, or had gone out of station for a month or so and for some other reason could not respond to the EC notice or could not file the claim for inclusion of name, or did not get enumeration form because of change of address, should EC permanently disable him from voting by striking his name off the voter list?“How can you insist on Form 6 for a person who was a voter earlier? If a person has shifted from one constituency to another within Delhi, it is erroneous to ask him/her to fill Form 6. You must allow similarly placed persons, whose names are deleted on the ground of ‘permanently shifted’, to fill Form 8.”Appearing for EC, senior advocate D S Naidu said the commission had conducted over one lakh camps in Delhi to spread awareness among people on how to re-enter their names in the voter list.
Share your thoughts in the comments
Be respectful · TOI community guidelines
“The situation on the ground is very different. Not a single person has come to fill Form 8. The petitioner is creating a scare on paper in the courtroom. Any person can seek inclusion of his/her name in the voter list of a constituency till the date of filing of nominations,” Naidu said, and clarified that no one has been prosecuted for using Form 6 to restore names in voter lists across states.But EC relented to keep the window open for inclusion of names in Delhi as SC insisted that the Oct 30 deadline for filing claims and objections need not be set in stone as elections were not imminent in Delhi to warrant urgent completion of the SIR exercise.