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‘Consider notices on voter deletions when alerted’: Supreme Court tells Election Commission
The court posted the matter after four weeks to enable a response from the poll panel.
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The Supreme Court on Friday said that the Election Commission of India’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise is a “continuing process” and the election watchdog should consider the representations of voters who were wrongly deleted from the electoral roll as and when it is alerted of such cases .
The order was passed in a batch of petitions filed against the conduct of SIR exercise in Keralam last year. Following this, the ECI had published the final electoral roll in February this year in which 0.857 million people were deleted out of the total 269.5 million voters enumerated in the state.
Stating that Keralam voters deleted during SIR can approach ECI with their representations, a bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant said that a formal order extending verification of rolls is not required as sought by the petitioners.
‘SIR is a continuing process’
The court told advocate G Prakash, the counsel for CPI(M) leader MV Govindan Master, one of the petitioners, that if there are persons who were left out due to paucity of time to get enumerated, the same can be brought to the notice of the poll panel. “We will tell them to examine it and keep it pending,” the bench said, as it asked the ECI to file a status report.
When the commission informed the court that the SIR exercise in Keralam is a “completed process”, the bench, also comprising justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana said, “It is a continuing process. Let them bring to your notice such deleted persons who are to be reconsidered. You consider it.”
The court also examined a separate petition filed by Congress MP Tarun Punia from Barabanki, UP, who alleged discrepancies in the SIR process in his state. Taking up his matter separately, the bench asked the petitioner to point out to ECI any further irregularities that still remain unaddressed. “On receipt of such a note pointing out irregularities, let the ECI find out the factual aspect and file a compliance report,” the bench said.
Senior advocate DS Naidu appearing for ECI pointed out that the commission can only act in cases where there is an “element of truth” even as the court left it to the poll panel to take “corrective” steps. Over 20 million voters in UP were deleted from the rolls following the SIR exercise.
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ECI was further directed to respond to a petition challenging the SIR exercise in Chhattisgarh filed by CPI leader Manish Kunjum. Senior advocate Raju Ramachandran, appearing for the petitioner, pointed out that despite notice issued to ECI on December 1, 2025, no response has been filed. He said that large-scale deletions of about 2.7 million have taken place in the state. The court posted the matter after four weeks to enable a response from the poll panel.
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