While hearing a petition where names of six members of a family had been deleted from the electoral roles after their Form 8 applications for address change were rejected, the High Court of Bombay at Goa on Wednesday said the draft roll cannot be the basis for deletion of names from the electoral rolls and that administrative software systems cannot supersede statutory laws.

The petitioners — Paresh Salgaoncar and five members of his family — said that they had moved to a new house in the same Santa Cruz Assembly constituency prior to the commencement of the SIR process and were instructed by the BLO to submit Form 8 for change of address. At the time of processing of these forms, errors were reflected since no record of their Electors Photo Identity Cards (EPIC) were found, and as such, the only option available in the ERONET login was ‘reject’.

The petitioners submitted that the Assistant Electoral Registration Officer informed them that their EPICs had been deleted from the rolls and consequently, their Form 8 applications could not be processed.

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The only recourse available was to submit Form 6 since there was no option in ERONET for reviewing or restoring the deleted EPICS.

The petitioners told the court that this explanation is untenable in law since Form 6 is applicable exclusively to first-time electors seeking fresh inclusion of their names in the elector roll and them being existing electors, seeking a change of address within the same Assembly constituency, are statutorily required to apply under Form 8.

A division bench of Justices Amit S Jamsandekar and Valmiki Menezes on Wednesday said the draft roll cannot be the basis for deletion. “Otherwise, Form 6, 7 or 8 have no meaning. Form 6, 7 and 8 are specifically for either a person who is a new voter, a person who has lost the right to vote, or a person who is shifting,” the court said.

The court told the ECI that the software “system did not allow” to accept Form-8. “He [petitioners] was never a new voter. He was an existing voter. He became new for your system,” the court said.

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The bench questioned the EC regarding provisions empowering the Commission to delete names without a hearing. “Show us from the Act…what empowers you to delete without hearing?… Your officers were helpless, and they just decided to throw it on the system. So, they recorded it in the order, saying that the system has rejected. We are very perturbed by this…we are just wondering how many more who have not come to court,” the bench said.

“What is the glitch? Once a Form 8 comes, the authority must apply its mind and see whether this person has really moved. When he has moved, …how does he load it into the system? How does the officer break into the system and set it right? There is no explanation for how the officer cannot override the system and put his order under it?” the bench asked.

Observing that “lakhs will go off the rolls”, the court added, “Here there is only one family. Take a situation where there are so many people who have shifted residence.”

EC extends SIR schedule in 2 states

New Delhi: The ECI on Wednesday decided to extend the ongoing SIR of electoral rolls in Andhra Pradesh and Meghalaya, postponing the publication of the final electoral roll to October 16 and October 26, respectively.

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“A meeting of the ECI was held today at 4.30 pm at Nirvachan Sadan, New Delhi. The meeting was attended by Chief Election Commissioner Shri Gyanesh Kumar and Election Commissioners Dr SS Sandhu and Dr Vivek Joshi. During the meeting it was decided to extend the SIR dates in Andhra Pradesh and Meghalaya,” it said.