Supreme Court seeks report from ECI on Form 7 misuse allegations

NEW DELHI The Election Commission of India (EC) told the Supreme Court on Friday (October 30, 2026) that though it found “false” Form 7s for deletion of voters during the Uttar Pradesh Special Intensive Revision (SIR), none of them were accepted. Appearing before a Bench headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, senior advocate Dama Seshadri Naidu, for the ECI, said corrective measures were taken promptly on discovery of such “false” forms.

Authorities had rejected Form 7s filed in violation of norms, the ECI said. In Delhi, BJP booth agents file deletion forms against Muslim voters living at their addresses In Delhi, BJP booth agents file deletion forms against Muslim voters living at their addresses BJP BLAs submit nearly 68% of Form 7s seeking deletions as ‘objector’ in Mustafabad, all against Muslim electors citing ‘absent/permanently shifted’ or ‘death’ In Delhi, BJP booth agents file deletion forms against Muslim voters living at their addresses storyline 1 The ECI was responding to allegations levelled in a petition filed by Congress’ Barabanki MP Tanuj Punia, represented by senior advocate Salman Khurshid and advocate Shariq Ahmed, about widespread misuse and fraud in connection with bulk filing of Form 7 during the claims-and-objections phase of the Uttar Pradesh SIR.

Mr. Ahmed questioned the ECI’s claim that false Form 7s were stopped at the gates. He said the court must subject this claim to judicial scrutiny. The counsel argued that it was exactly the lack of any corrective measures in the Uttar Pradesh SIR that “emboldened” the filing of bulk Form 7s in Karnataka and Telangana. Can you punish laxity by forfeiting the right to vote forever, Supreme Court asks ECI Can you punish laxity by forfeiting the right to vote forever, Supreme Court asks ECI Form 6 is ‘cast in stone’ and cannot be changed, says SC, adding that the Bihar judgment is not a binding precedent and that it allowed ‘logical discrepancy’ in West Bengal as an ‘interim arrangement’; top court tells ECI to extend Delhi SIR Can you punish laxity by forfeiting the right to vote forever, Supreme Court asks ECI storyline 1 “Of the 32 Form 7s in the Hata Assembly constituency in Uttar Pradesh, two were signed by the booth-level officer.

All these forms pertained to deletion of voters belonging to one community,” the counsel submitted. The court asked Mr. Ahmed to submit a note with details and additional information, if any, on the issue. “Let the ECI look into these issues, take necessary action and file a compliance report,” the court observed. The SIR verdict, serious constitutional questions The SIR verdict, serious constitutional questions The top court must ensure fairness in electoral roll revisions The SIR verdict, serious constitutional questions opinion 1 The Uttar Pradesh SIR process ended in April with the final voter list showing a reported 84 lakh increase in the electorate to 13.39 crore.

Over two crore voters were removed after the revision. Mr. Khurshid and Mr. Ahmed pointed out that the issue raised in the Barabanki MP’s application needed to be taken up without any further delay as the process for State Assembly elections may commence as early as in December 2026 or early January next year. Mr. Punia’s plea detailed that “numerous” Form 7 applications were generated and submitted with incomplete or false particulars of the objector, invalid identifying details, forged signatures, and, in several instances, in the names of persons who had subsequently denied filing any such objections.

It also alleged that booth-level officers (BLOs) received pre-filled Form 7 applications seeking deletion of multiple electors, including electors who had already been verified during the SIR process. Karnataka SIR: 64.5 lakh voters potentially missing in rolls, majority of them young Karnataka SIR: 64.5 lakh voters potentially missing in rolls, majority of them young Elector-to-population ratio released officially by Karnataka CEO shows under-enrolment of about 64.5 lakh electors, of whom roughly 38.41 lakh are in the 18 to 29 age group.

Karnataka SIR: 64.5 lakh voters potentially missing in rolls, majority of them young storyline 1 The Barabanki MP said these instances had raised “serious apprehensions regarding the integrity of the objection mechanism”. He has sought initiation of penal action under Section 31 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, and other applicable provisions of law, against persons found to have made false declarations, filed fraudulent objections, impersonated objectors, or otherwise misused the Form 7 mechanism to procure wrongful deletions from the electoral rolls.

As thousands were deleted from electoral rolls using auto-generated Form-7s, ECI gave no SOPs to State Electoral Officers As thousands were deleted from electoral rolls using auto-generated Form-7s, ECI gave no SOPs to State Electoral Officers While thousands of names have been deleted from electoral rolls using auto-generated Form 7s digitally signed by Electoral Registration Officers, no written communication or Standard Operating Procedure (SoP) has been shared with the election authorities in the States in this regard; according to the Manual on Electoral Rolls too, here is no provision for an ERO to file a Form 7 As thousands were deleted from electoral rolls using auto-generated Form-7s, ECI gave no SOPs to State Electoral Officers storyline 1 Multiple instances The submissions by Mr.

Naidu in the Supreme Court echo an affidavit filed by the Election Commission in September, in which it referred to multiple reports received from electoral officials on the ground about attempts to submit Form 7 in bulk to BLOs. These included the instance in Hata Assembly constituency, when a person only identified as ‘Yogendra’ “involuntarily” left on the table of the BLO Form 7s to delete 32 voters.

The man, ‘Yogendra’, remains untraceable. Over 61,000 Form-7 applications filed by election officials in Karnataka, none cites reas…