The Supreme Court has issued notice in the plea against the deletion of names from the electoral roll under the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise in Delhi.

On September 17, the Court agreed to hear the plea after Advocate Bhushan mentioned the matter.

On August 31, the Election Commission published a draft electoral roll under which 47 lakh voters were deleted from the list of 1.45 crore total voters. Around one in three voters in Delhi were removed from the draft electoral roll published as part of the Special Intensive Revision of the voter list.

The poll panel had said over 43.32 lakh were found to have shifted or were absent during the SIR, over 2.82 lakh voters were found to be deceased, while over 1.41 lakh were enrolled at multiple places.

The Bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice V Mohana issued notice in the matter and directed the ECI to file a status report in the matter.


Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal and Advocate Prashant Bhushan appeared for the Petitioners, while Senior Advocate DS Naidu appeared for the ECI.

Justice Bagchi said, "Refinement of the tool is necessary...Almost mechanical notices are going. In all probability, they are machine-generated notices. So, please examine whether some additional filters are necessary before the notices."

Naidu, appearing for the ECI, contended that the petitioners approached the Court merely a few days after submitting their representation, without giving an opportunity to the Election Commission to redress their issues.

Bhushan, appearing for the Petitioner, raised concerns regarding the large-scale issuance of notices to around 33 lakh voters in Delhi following earlier deletions from the draft electoral roll. It was argued that the category of "logical discrepancy", such as age gaps of less than 15 years between parents and children, or age gaps under 40 years with grandparents, caused severe hardship to citizens, particularly daily wage earners.

Chief Justice Kant, while giving his own example, said, "That logical discrepancy, you need to clarify this a little. I shifted to Delhi in May 2019 as I was elevated. So before that, my vote was in Chandigarh. Your logical discrepancy notice can ask me whether, in 2019, I was a voter in Delhi or Chandigarh or somewhere else. You might not know that I was in Chandigarh. You can say Delhi or somewhere else to clarify. So a person will clarify it."

Bhushan submitted, "Suppose one of the siblings, or one of my brothers or sisters, was born prematurely, let's say, and therefore the difference is less than 9 months. Now, I am supposed to go in response to this notice and spend several days sometimes. Mr Husefa Ahmadi told me his house help went there this morning, he told me. He was made to sit for 3 hours, then he was told that the officer was not there. Now, how many people? There are daily wagers among these people. How many people, My Lord, can respond to these kinds of notices? 33 lakh out of 97 remaining, 33 lakh are being issued notices!"

Justice Mohana said, "We have also come across a situation where BLOs are not available."

Sibal further submitted that voters living in multi-story buildings often remained unvisited by Booth Level Officers (BLOs) and that several notices lacked essential details such as meeting venues.

Sibal said, "There are several buildings in Delhi that I know, because I have... contested elections, which are five stories high. Five stories high, there's no elevator. You think the BLO goes to each of these? I mean, which world are we living in?"

Naidu clarified that the list of 12 prescribed documents was non-exhaustive and that voters could produce any convincing material to satisfy the authority. Counsel 1 added that manpower had been scaled up, including the deployment of 14,000 BLOs and 17,000 Booth Level Agents (BLAs) in Delhi, and that the authority remained open to extending the inquiry deadline past October 29.

The Court noted that in a capital city like Delhi, a significant portion of the population consisted of migrant workers whose historical data might not feature in local older rolls.

The Bench remarked that query notices regarding prior voting locations were appropriate to prevent duplicate entries, but emphasized that BLOs must proactively assist citizens.

Accordingly, the matter was listed for a further date.

Cause Title: Anjali Bhardwaj v. Election Commission of India and Ors. [W.P.(C) No. 1188 / 2026]

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