Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya, Justice Tejas Karia, Delhi High Court
Any Elector Excluded From Electoral Roll During SIR Exercise On Account Of Demolition Or Relocation Can Fill Form 6 Issued By ECI: Delhi High Court
|The petitioners approached the Delhi High Court seeking the formulation of a special facilitative mechanism during the ongoing Special Intensive Revision exercise for NCT of Delhi.
The Delhi High Court has dismissed a petition for issuance of a direction to the ECI to formulate a special facilitative mechanism during the SIR exercise for the NCT of Delhi for persons who became homeless due to demolition drives. The High Court held that any elector who has been excluded from the Electoral Roll on account of demolition or relocation from his existing place of ordinary residence is entitled to fill up Form 6 issued by the ECI.
The petitioners approached the High Court seeking the formulation of a special facilitative mechanism during the ongoing Special Intensive Revision exercise for NCT of Delhi for the enrolment, transposition and/or retention of the names of homeless persons or rendered homeless or displaced by demolition drives to ensure that such persons are not excluded from the electoral rolls.
The Division Bench of Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and Justice Tejas Karia held, “Assuming that any elector has been excluded from the Electoral Roll on account of demolition or relocation from his existing place of ordinary residence, such person is entitled to fill up Form 6 issued by ECI under Rules 13(1) and 26 of Registration of Electors Rules, 1960 (“Rules”). The Manual clearly provides that once the details are provided by homeless persons in Form 6, the BLO will visit the address given therein for more than one night to ascertain that the homeless person actually sleeps at the given place. Accordingly, the prayer for issuing direction to the ECI to formulate and implement special facilitative mechanism during the SIR exercise for NCT of Delhi for enrolment, or transposition and / or retention of the names of the homeless persons due to demolition drives to include them in the Electoral Roll, is not required to be granted in our considered view as such mechanism is already in place.”
Senior Advocate Satyakam represented the Petitioner while Standing Counsel Sanjay Vashishtha represented the Respondent.
Arguments
It was the case of the petitioners that the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise in Delhi, initiated vide ECI Directive No. 23/2025-ERS (Vol. II) dated May 14, 2026, proceeds on the premise that Booth Level Officers (BLOs) would be able to physically locate existing electors at their recorded addresses and as a consequence, persons who are homeless or have been rendered homeless or displaced pursuant to demolition drives are at serious risk of systematic exclusion from the electoral rolls.
Reasoning
The Bench explained that the Manual already provides a process for determination of the ordinary residence in accordance with the RP Act for homeless persons as per Clause 8.5 of the Manual. “Therefore, the apprehension of the Petitioner that the homeless persons shall be excluded from the Draft Electoral Roll appears to be without any basis”, it added.
The Bench took note of the fact that the Petitioner did not mention any particulars or the numbers of the persons who still remained excluded from the Electoral Roll subsequent to the last Assembly Elections in Delhi.
The Bench also clarified that any elector that has been excluded from the Electoral Roll on account of demolition or relocation can fill up Form 6 issued by the ECI. The Bench also noticed that the extract of the Draft Electoral Roll showing the category of homeless persons with their name, age, gender and photograph, showing the house number as ‘0’ demonstrated that the ECI has already been implementing the process of inclusion of the homeless persons in the Draft Electoral Roll as provided in the Manual during the SIR exercise.
Thus, considering that the existing mechanism for inclusion of the names of the homeless persons is adequate and being implemented by the ECI, the Bench dismissed the Petition.
Cause Title: Indu Prakash Singh v. Government of the National Capital Territory of Delhi and Ors (Neutral Citation: 2026:DHC:7271-DB)
Appearance
Petitioner: Senior Advocate Satyakam, Advocates Talha Abdul Rahman, Faizan Ahmad, Vibha Swaminathan, Sudhanshu Tewari, Rehan Ghalib Khan
Respondent: Standing Counsel Sanjay Vashishtha, Advocates Siddhartha Goswami Jasmine Morgat, Anuj Chaturvedi, Richa Dhawan, Yashita Jain, Sahil Bhaskar