Bombay High Court tells Election Commission to restore Goa voters dropped in SIR despite filing Form 8 for an address change

On Thursday, 5 November, the Goa bench of the Bombay High Court directed the Election Commission of India (ECI) to put members of a Santa Cruz family back on the voters’ list. Their names were struck off in Goa’s special intensive revision (SIR), though they had filed Form 8 to record a change of address. Justice Valmiki Menezes and Justice Amit Jamsandekar allowed their petitions and told the Booth Level Officer (BLO) of the Santa Cruz constituency to enter the names within 10 days, once the family’s present residence is confirmed.

The Commission wanted the case kept pending because challenges to the SIR are before the Supreme Court. The judges declined, holding that this dispute stood apart, as the revision in Goa is already over. They also refused to hold back their order for two weeks, telling the ECI it could seek a stay from the Supreme Court.

Form 8 or the enumeration form

The family had shifted to another ward in the same constituency and took Form 8, the application for moving an existing entry to a new address, to the BLO. Their names were still missing from the draft roll. The ECI’s stand was that its SIR guidelines require a voter to return the enumeration form, which comes pre-filled, together with Form 8 for the change to be processed. At a hearing on 1 October, its counsel said the software rejects a Form 8 on its own when no enumeration form is on record. Those left out, the Commission argued, were not deleted but missing from a roll built afresh, and had to apply as new voters on Form 6.

The bench did not accept this. The enumeration form, the judges noted, carries a statement that the voter still lives at the address in the old roll. A person who has moved cannot be made to sign something untrue, they said, and Form 6 would push the same voter into a second false statement, that the name is on no other roll. They added that the rules require a voter to be heard before a name is removed.

Revision still running in the Telugu states

The ruling came on this family’s petitions in Goa. Andhra Pradesh and Telangana are midway through their own SIR. Claims and objections close in Andhra Pradesh on 20 November and in Telangana on 26 November, and the final rolls of both states are due on 30 November. In Telangana, 73,39,235 entries were left off the draft roll as dead, shifted, absent or duplicate, as Telugu Scope reported on 31 October. Whether the SIR itself is valid is still to be decided by the Supreme Court.