Supreme Court says logical discrepancy validity remains undecided, orders ECI to trace 47 lakh missing Delhi voters

The Supreme Court said on Wednesday that it has not finally decided whether the Election Commission of India may use 'logical discrepancy' to remove electors during the special intensive revision of electoral rolls. The bench, led by Chief Justice Surya Kant and including Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana, stated that the practice was only permitted as an interim measure in the West Bengal case and was not adjudicated upon in the Bihar SIR matter.

The Court directed the Election Commission to devise a mechanism to reach out to voters whose names were omitted from Delhi's draft electoral rolls. It observed that the right to vote cannot be forfeited merely because a person was absent during the enumeration exercise, and asked why previously enrolled electors must file Form 6, meant for first-time registration, to seek inclusion.

“The right to vote is a vital right. Your job is to act with due diligence.”

The Election Commission said it will consider late forms and extending the 30 October deadline for accepting enumeration forms from voters whose names had been omitted. The Court urged the poll panel not to be bound by the existing deadline and to continue accepting such forms.

Justice Bagchi described the requirement to file Form 6 as a structural incongruity, asking whether a person who had not shifted and was already on the 2026 electoral roll should forever lose the right to be included. He emphasized that the right to vote is a vital right and that the poll panel's job is to act with due diligence.

The Court's intervention followed a public hearing held a day earlier in east Delhi's Trilokpuri, where hundreds of residents raised grievances over the wrongful deletion of their names from the draft electoral rolls. The bench also said it would not make further comments given the sensitivity of the matter and the risk that oral observations are taken out of context.

The case concerns a plea alleging a lack of transparency in notices issued to voters by election authorities. The Court noted that its oral observations are not conclusive and that judicial remarks are sometimes repeatedly cited out of context as if every issue had already been decided.