DA Editorial Desk | Dhruba Deka
The Supreme Court will hear a plea on 28 October that goes to the heart of how India keeps its voter lists honest. Two days later, on 30 October, the window for claims and objections in Delhi’s Special Intensive Revision closes. Those two dates sit very close together, and thousands of voters who have been struck off the draft roll are caught between them. The court was right to bring forward the hearing from 30 October. It should now make sure that its order, whatever it is, arrives in time to help people who may otherwise lose their vote.
The numbers are large. According to reports, the draft roll published on 31 August excluded more than 47 lakh names in a capital of roughly 1.45 crore voters, and over 33 lakh electors have been flagged for notices over discrepancies in their enumeration forms. The Election Commission’s lawyer has told the court that the plea against the process is premature, that every notice states its reason, that no voter will be deleted without a hearing, and that more staff have been deployed to clear the backlog. The commission has also indicated that the deadline could be extended if needed.
Those assurances deserve to be taken seriously, and the commission is entitled to the benefit of the doubt on its intentions. Cleaning an electoral register is a legitimate and necessary task. But a process is judged by how it treats the ordinary voter, and several concerns raised in court are hard to dismiss.
In September, a bench led by Chief Justice Surya Kant asked the commission to consider additional safeguards after Justice Joymalya Bagchi observed that “in all probability, they are machine-generated notices”. The court stressed that booth level officers should actively help affected voters, and suggested training for field staff and a plain-language FAQ on responding to notices. Petitioners including activists Anjali Bhardwaj and Amrita Johri argue that notices have gone to many electors without a clear explanation of the reason or the steps they must take. On 14 October, advocate Prashant Bhushan told the court that deleted voters are being asked to use Form 6, which includes a declaration that they have never voted before, and that a false declaration can lead to imprisonment. He asked that these voters be allowed to use Form 8, meant for shifted voters, or a new form. The Chief Justice said the court was thinking of passing an order that would take care of these concerns.
That last point matters enormously. A long-standing voter who is told to declare that she has never voted before is being asked to describe her own history falsely, simply because the system has dropped her. Whatever the technical reasons, this is an unreasonable burden, and it risks discouraging honest citizens from correcting the record. The commission can fix this with a short administrative order, and it should not wait for a court direction.
We suggest five practical steps. First, publish the list of electors who received notices, together with the specific reason attached to each, in a searchable form. Second, create a simple restoration route, using Form 8 or an equivalent, that does not require anyone to make an untrue declaration. Third, extend the 30 October deadline by a reasonable period, so that people are not penalised for the commission’s own backlog. Fourth, require a human officer to review every case before deletion, with a short written reason. Fifth, run a visible public campaign, in Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi and English, explaining how to check one’s name and what to do if it is missing.
The national debate is also heating up. Protesters have demanded the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, and Reuters has reported that more than 130 million names have been removed from voter lists nationwide, in categories that include the dead, the relocated and the untraceable. The commission denies favouring any party and says wrongly deleted voters can re-enrol. Those categories are plausible reasons for a deletion, but they are only as good as the verification behind them. Independent confirmation, even of a sample, would do more to settle the argument than any amount of political rhetoric.
India’s election machinery is justly admired, and its officers work under heavy pressure. That is precisely why it should not rest on a presumption of trust that voters cannot verify. The court has already signalled that it wants safeguards, and the commission has said it will protect the right to be heard. The test is whether a voter in Delhi on 30 October can look up her name, understand why it was flagged, restore it without a false statement and vote in the next election. If the answer is yes, the revision will have strengthened the roll. If not, the argument over the roll will outlast the court case.