The Supreme Court’s October 28 hearing on Delhi’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) raised major questions about how registered voters could vanish from a draft electoral roll and then reappear.
Here, we break it down into what the judges were concerned about, what the Election Commission (EC) promised, and what remains to be decided.
1. What was the dispute before the court?
Transparency activists Anjali Bhardwaj and Amrita Johri filed a petition challenging how Delhi carried out its SIR. The Bench, comprising Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana, was primarily concerned with finding a proper way for voters who had been registered but left off the draft roll to get back on it.
According to figures cited at the hearing, about 47.56 lakh electors had not returned their enumeration forms. About 43 lakh were marked as shifted or absent. Petitioners’ counsel Prashant Bhushan argued that many had never received the forms. These are claims that need checking. Not every omission was wrongful.
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A second issue was about roughly 19.34 lakh voters flagged for “logical discrepancy” (more on that later in this article). These were notices about people on the draft roll.
2. Why did Form 6 become contentious?
Form 6 has a declaration saying the applicant is applying to be included for the first time and is not already on any Assembly or Parliamentary constituency list.
The objection was that an existing voter who missed enumeration was required to make a declaration that appeared inconsistent with their registration history. The EC’s counsel, Dama Seshadri Naidu, explained that “first-time” meant inclusion afresh in the SIR roll. He also said that merely using Form 6 in this process did not give rise to any prosecution.
That explanation did not resolve the Bench’s concern. It explored whether the Commission could accept enumeration forms belatedly and use Form 8 for changes of residence. These suggestions addressed different circumstances: a person temporarily away from home, someone who had moved, and a genuinely new applicant need not all follow the same route.
The legal importance extends beyond a form’s label. A procedure should let applicants describe their circumstances truthfully. An assurance about prosecutions cannot, by itself, settle whether the prescribed declaration fits the people required to make it.
3. What did the hearing reveal about voter absence, migration and outreach?
Being unavailable during a visit does not necessarily mean a voter has stopped residing in the constituency. Section 20(1A) of the Representation of the People Act, 1950 expressly protects ordinary residence during temporary absence. The distinction matters in a city where people travel for work and move between rented homes.
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The Bench suggested accommodating people whose non-response did not fit the existing classifications, including those who had not been served an enumeration form. It also pressed for accessible publicity and outreach to affected voters.
The EC answered that exclusion was not permanent and that voters could still seek inclusion. That leaves a practical question: can an eligible voter discover the omission, understand the remedy and complete it in time? The availability of an application on paper does not answer how accessible it is in practice.
None of this establishes that every absent or shifted entry must be restored automatically. It calls for a reliable way to distinguish ineligibility from a missed visit or an unreturned form, and to give affected people a meaningful opportunity to respond.
4. What is a “logical discrepancy”, and what did the court say about these checks?
“Logical discrepancy” is the EC’s term for inconsistencies or unusual patterns that software flags when it compares voters’ details in electoral records and supporting documents. Reported examples include differences in the spelling of a voter’s or parent’s name, an age gap of less than 15 years or more than 50 years between a voter and a parent, and six or more people recorded as siblings.
Such flags can lead to notices asking voters to explain their details. A spelling variation may arise from a recording error, while an unusual family relationship may require verification. The concern is how officials distinguish an error or a genuine circumstance from evidence that a person is ineligible to vote.
Justice Bagchi explained that the Bihar SIR judgment did not decide the legality of these checks and that the permission given in West Bengal was an interim arrangement. The legality remained open.
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The concern was whether identifying patterns through software provided the individual consideration election officials must give. A computer-generated inconsistency can prompt an inquiry; whether it justifies an adverse decision is a further question. The Bench also questioned reopening entries from an earlier intensive revision through this method.
The significance is therefore limited but real: the EC cannot treat the Bihar ruling as having answered a question that was not adjudicated in that case. Equally, keeping the challenge open does not predict its eventual outcome.
The court will need to examine the method, its legal basis and the safeguards surrounding individual decisions.
5. What are the EC’s residual powers, and did the hearing narrow them?
Residual powers describe the Commission’s capacity under Article 324 to address electoral situations for which legislation has not provided a complete answer. The rationale is practical: an election authority cannot be paralysed whenever an unforeseen problem arises.
The Constitution Bench in Mohinder Singh Gill (1978) recognised this breadth while insisting on legality and fairness. AC Jose v Sivan Pillai (1984) made the boundary explicit: the EC can supplement the law where necessary, but cannot override an Act or express rules.
SIR also has a statutory foundation. Section 21(3) of the 1950 Act permits a special revision, for recorded reasons, in the manner the EC considers appropriate. The scope of that discretion must be understood through the legislation and the judgments interpreting it.
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In its May 27, 2026 Bihar SIR judgment, the Supreme Court recognised residual authority to devise a suitable documentation framework. Paragraph 152 required a rational connection to the exercise’s purpose and regard for the statutory scheme. Paragraph 158 expressly recognised discretion to substitute documents, subject to reasonableness.
Against that background, Justice Bagchi’s reported description of Forms 6, 7 and 8 as “cast in stone”, while allowing supplementary declarations, needs careful explanation.
The defensible reading is that administrative adaptation must remain legally justified. Whether a particular SIR requirement supplements the statutory framework or impermissibly displaces it requires examination of that requirement. The hearing did not finally redraw that boundary.
6. Will the Supreme Court order fresh elections in West Bengal?
The October 28 exchanges provide little basis for expecting that outcome. The immediate questions concern the legality of voter-verification methods and remedies for affected electors. Ordering a fresh Assembly election would require the court to address a much wider set of legal and factual issues.
Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP Abhishek Banerjee has demanded restoration of the previous government and fresh elections within six months. His argument draws on the Bench’s description of its permission for logical discrepancy checks in West Bengal as an interim arrangement. That qualification attaches to the permission for the verification exercise. The validity of the elections conducted afterwards would require separate adjudication.
Article 329(b) sends challenges to Assembly elections through election petitions. Under Sections 80, 80A, and 81 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, a candidate or elector usually challenges a single election in the High Court and must file within 45 days of the returned candidate’s election. Section 116A gives a right of appeal to the Supreme Court.
For grounds under Section 100(1)(d), such as specified legal violations and improper refusal of votes, the challenger must show that the winning candidate’s result was materially affected. A statewide count of excluded names wouldn’t show which eligible voters were wrongly excluded, where they were registered, or how the legally relevant irregularity changed particular results.
Another problem is that challenges to how electoral rolls are prepared, and challenges to finished elections follow different legal rules. In Kabul Singh v Kundan Singh (1969), the Supreme Court said there were limits on reopening entries in the electoral roll during election litigation. So a challenge based on SIR would need to show two things: that it has a legal basis, and that the court has the power to grant the relief sought.
Even if the court later rules that a verification method was unlawful, it would still have to decide what happens to elections that are already finished. Anyone seeking a statewide recount would need a good reason to skip the usual constituency-by-constituency process, and the people affected would need a chance to speak. Bringing back the old government would raise another question: what in the constitution allows its power to be revived?
The hearing seems to point more directly to easier procedures for voters left off the list, action on deadlines, and a closer look at the logic checks. The Bench expected the EC to extend the deadline, but did not want to issue an extension order itself. What the Commission does next, and what goes into the written record of the proceedings, will show what relief people actually get.
Judges’ questions can also shape these decisions, since they point out problems and draw out answers. The Supreme Court said as much in Chief Election Commissioner of India v MR Vijayabhaskar (2021): oral remarks help test arguments, and they are not final. For West Bengal, one has to watch whether the court finds anything illegal, what evidence it relies on to reach its conclusion, and what relief is sought and granted.