New Delhi: Two petitioners approached the Delhi High Court (HC) this month after their exclusion in the recent Special Intensive Revision (SIR). Their grievance—the local electoral representative wanted them to refile their claim with Form 6, which is titled ‘Application Form for New Voters’; an application under this, the petitioners said, would thus amount to making a false declaration.
The court declared their apprehension misplaced, and asked the petitioners to go with the electoral registration officer’s (ERO’s) suggestion. In doing so, the court did remedy the immediate grievance of the petitioners, but left a larger question hanging: should people left out in the SIR have to register as fresh voters under Form 6, instead of being re-enrolled through the process outlined for residence shifts and correction of entries in the rolls (Form 8)?
The case at hand reflects a predicament facing lakhs of Delhiites left out in the voter roll revision exercise, which has been at the centre of protests by the Opposition as well as youth movements. In Delhi alone, 47.56 lakh electors, or 32.78 per cent of Delhi’s electorate, were excluded from the draft electoral roll published following the SIR. Of these, 43.32 lakh were categorised as permanently shifted or absent, and 1.41 lakh as duplicate or enrolled at multiple places. The remaining were deceased.
For electors who were unable to submit their enumeration forms during the stipulated period, the route provided during the claims-and-objections process was Form 6.
At the core of the debate is the status the electoral system gives to an existing voter whose name is lost during a revision: whether that person’s route back should begin anew, or whether the procedure should preserve and restore the continuity of an electoral registration that previously existed.
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Why petitioners came to HC
The petitioners’ difficulty with voter enrolment arose because they had shifted from their earlier address and could not fill out the enumeration forms during the SIR. Their names were consequently deleted from the electoral roll.
When they approached the ERO, they advised the petitioners to make a fresh application through Form 6. However, Form 6 contains a declaration that the applicant is applying for inclusion in the electoral roll for the first time. Apprehensive that this would amount to a false declaration, the petitioners approached the HC.
But their challenge went beyond getting their names back on the rolls.
The petitioners sought a direction requiring the Election Commission (EC) of India to redesign the procedure governing existing electors who could not be enumerated during the SIR.
Their case was that deletion during the SIR should not turn an existing elector into a fresh applicant. They sought restoration of their earlier entries and their subsequent transfer, through Form 8, to the electoral roll at their present place of residence.
Hearing their case, a Division Bench of Justices Dinesh Mehta and Aditi Choudhary found the “false declaration” apprehension misplaced. The court noted that the suggestion to file Form 6 had come from the EC’s standing counsel Sanjay Vashishtha, acting on instructions from the electoral registration officer. It consequently closed the writ proceedings, leaving the petitioners free to submit Form 6, which it said would be processed in accordance with law
The high court did not decide on merits whether the ECI can require an existing elector omitted during the SIR to return to the roll through Form 6. It disposed of the case on the basis of the remedy offered by the EC.
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Form 6 vs Form 8
The distinction between the two forms explains the controversy.
ECI’s Form 6 is titled “Application Form for New Voters” and is an application for inclusion of a name in an electoral roll. Form 8, on the other hand, is specifically a voter application for shifting residence, correction of entries in an existing electoral roll, replacement of an EPIC (Electors Photo Identity Cards) or marking a person as a person with disability.
For shifting residence, Form 8 states that the applicant has shifted and seeks deletion of the name from the previous address and its transfer to the current address.
The distinction was important in the petitioners’ case because they maintained that theirs was not a first-time claim. They had previously been electors and had approached the court after their entries disappeared during the revision following their change of residence.
The EC took a different procedural position in their case. It argued that the petitioners’ grievance could be remedied by submitting Form 6 for inclusion in the electoral roll. It argued that the petitioner had previously been asked to fill the form and had been assured assistance from the Electoral Registration Officer.
A similar use of Form 6 for previously enrolled voters surfaced following the SIR in Goa, where 97 electors flagged for “logical discrepancies” were excluded in the final roll published in February 2026. Election authorities later used Form 6 to bring them back onto the electoral roll.
The use of Form 6 attracted objections from affected voters. Questions raised in the Bombay High Court at Goa asked why electors should have to apply as new voters when they had already been enrolled. Judgment in this case is awaited.
(Edited by Sunanda Ranjan)
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