Justice Amit Bansal, Delhi High Court
Special Intensive Revision (SIR)| Booth Level Agents Cannot Be Made Liable For Verification Of Information In Enumeration Form: Delhi High Court
|The Court held that the BLAs can only certify voter identity match, not entire contents of enumeration forms, in special intensive revision process.
The Delhi High Court has held that Booth Level Agents (BLAs) appointed by political parties to assist in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls cannot be compelled to furnish a personal undertaking certifying the correctness of all particulars contained in Enumeration Forms, since such information lies within the exclusive knowledge of the elector and is beyond the BLA's capacity to verify. The Court held that once the responsibility for substantive verification has statutorily been entrusted to the Booth Level Officer (BLO), a government functionary, there exists no justification for simultaneously requiring the BLA to certify the veracity of the same information.
The Court clarified that a BLA's accountability under Section 31 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950 must be confined to matters actually within their verification ability, namely, confirming that the photograph affixed to an Enumeration Form matches the identity of the elector submitting it, rather than the substantive contents of the form itself.
A Bench of Justice Amit Bansal observed, “There is no dispute that a BLA, who is assisting a political party in furnishing information to the ECI, should be responsible for the veracity of the statement being furnished by him. Accordingly, insofar as information given in the Forms provided in Annexure-58 and Annexure-59 of the Manual are concerned, the BLA would have full responsibility for the same as the said Forms are being filled by the BLA on the basis of information gathered by him/her. Similarly, insofar as collection of the Enumeration Form is concerned, the BLA would be responsible to the extent that the photograph matches with the identity of the elector as contained in the Enumeration Form. However, the BLA cannot be made liable for all the information, which is contained in the Enumeration Form as there is no way a BLA could be in a position to verify the same. The said information would be exclusively within the knowledge of the concerned elector”.
Senior Advocate Sakal Bhushan appeared for the petitioner Senior Advocate Dama Sheshadri Naidu appeared for the respondent.
The petitioners, the President of the Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee and the Chairman of its Booth Management Committee, challenged Clause 9(d)(iv) of the ECI's Detailed Guidelines for Special Intensive Revision, which required BLAs to submit an undertaking that they had personally verified the particulars in Enumeration Forms submitted on behalf of electors.
The petitioners contended this requirement was inconsistent with the ECI's own modified guidelines, which placed verification responsibility on the BLO. They also sought printed and soft copies of the 2002 electoral rolls and the Frozen Photo Electoral Roll to facilitate BLA participation in the SIR process.
The petitioners had earlier approached the Delhi High Court through a writ petition, which was disposed of with liberty to seek clarification from the Supreme Court in view of the ECI's objection to jurisdiction. The Supreme Court permitted withdrawal with liberty to approach the High Court, leading to the filing of the present petition.
Relying on the Supreme Court's ruling in Association for Democratic Reforms v. Election Commission of India2026 INSC 564, which upheld the ECI's plenary power to conduct SIR under Section 21(3) of the RP Act, the Court confined its inquiry to whether the undertaking requirement under Clause 9(d)(iv) was arbitrary.
Examining the Enumeration Form itself, the Court noted that it already contains a separate undertaking to be furnished by the BLO, who alone conducts house-to-house verification. The Court observed that "the BLA cannot be made liable for all the information, which is contained in the Enumeration Form as there is no way a BLA could be in a position to verify the same.
“Once the responsibility of verification and undertaking has been entrusted to the BLOs, there exists no justification for requiring BLAs to furnish personal undertakings certifying the correctness of the particulars in the Enumeration Form. Therefore, in the opinion of this Court, the BLA can only be made liable in terms of Section 31 of the RP Act for information that can be verified by the BLA, i.e. that the photograph on the Enumeration Form matches with the identity of the elector whose Form it is”, the Bench said.
The Court, however, upheld the requirement of undertakings in respect of the separate forms concerning dead voters and shifted electors (Annexures 58 and 59 of the Manual of Electoral Rolls, 2023), since those forms are filled by the BLA based on their own field verification.
The writ petition was disposed of with the finding that a BLA's liability under Section 31 of the RP Act is limited to confirming that the photograph on the Enumeration Form matches the elector's identity, and does not extend to the substantive particulars in the form. On the prayer for electoral roll copies, the Court recorded the ECI's statement that the 2002 roll and the Final Roll as of 6 January 2025 were available online, and that physical copies, including those with photographs, would be supplied to the petitioners upon written request and payment of the requisite fee.
Cause Title: Devender Yadav & Anr. v. Election Commission of India & Anr. (Neutral Citation: 2026:DHC:7464)
Appearances:
Petitioners: Sakal Bhushan, Senior Advocate, Sunil Kumar, Vasu Bhushan, Prateek Kumar Sinha and Nipun Bhushan, Advocates.
Respondent: Dama Sheshadri Naidu, Senior Advocate, Prateek Kumar, Deepak Sharma, Devansh Rai, Shriya Jadhav, Anukrati Awasthi, Rajeev Sharma and Vinayak Sharma, Advocates.