UP SIR Form 7 Complaints: Supreme Court Tells EC to Act on Bulk Deletions

A Supreme Court bench led by Chief Justice Surya Kant on Friday directed the Election Commission of India to examine allegations that Form 7 applications seeking deletion of voters were filed in bulk during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Uttar Pradesh, to take corrective steps, and to file a compliance report. The order came on petitions that say the problem was not fixed in Uttar Pradesh, according to Bar & Bench and Law Trend.

Petitioners Must Send the EC a Written Note

The bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana asked the petitioners to give the Commission a note listing the irregularities that remain unresolved. Senior Advocate DS Naidu, appearing for the Commission, accepted that several Form 7 applications had been filed in bulk. He said officials checked them, found them false and took no action on them, and that the Commission could look at specific allegations once it received a formal complaint.

The petitioners told the court that 32 Form 7 applications in one constituency were filed to remove voters, and that two of the forms were allegedly signed by a Booth Level Officer. They pointed to an earlier direction of 5 August covering Chhattisgarh, Kerala and Uttar Pradesh, and said the concerns in the first two states had been resolved but those in Uttar Pradesh had not.

Also read Maharashtra SIR: Supreme Court Seeks EC Reply on 3 Crore Deletions

Kerala Deadline Not Extended

In a separate matter on the same day, the court declined to extend the SIR verification deadline in Kerala. It asked petitioners to identify people who did not get a fair chance to take part and raise their cases with the Commission through representations, which the Commission will be directed to examine while the petitions stay pending.

What Voters Can Do Now

Form 7 is the form used to object to a name on the roll or to seek its deletion. Voters in Uttar Pradesh who find their name missing or marked for deletion can ask their local electoral registration office for the status of any Form 7 filed against them. Earlier reports on this site track the scale of deletions across states: SIR voter list deletions state-wise, and the Commission’s stand in court: EC affidavit on SIR, CEC and Form 6.

The reports do not give a date for the next hearing, and the Commission’s compliance report has no stated deadline yet. The full order was not available at the time of writing. More on the revision is in Daily Updates.

Source: Based on reporting by Bar & Bench and Law Trend.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.