Restore names of Goa family deleted during SIR exercise in 10 days: Bombay HC

The Bombay High Court at Goa on Thursday ordered the Election Commission of India (ECI) to restore the names of Paresh Salgaonkar and six of his family members to the electoral roll within 10 days, after their names were deleted during a Special Intensive Revision (SIR) drive.

“We allow the petition and order the restoration of the names within ten days,” a bench of justices Valmiki Menezes and Amit Jamsandekar said on Thursday. The high court had reserved its verdict on October 13.

Salgaonkar, a resident of the Santa Cruz constituency in north Goa, approached the high court complaining that their names were omitted from the draft roll even though they had submitted Form 8 (for change of address). Salgaonkar also refused to fill Form 6, saying doing so would amount to filing a false declaration since he was neither a first-time voter nor shifted to another constituency.

Advocate Vivek Rodrigues, representing the petitioner, said the Salgaonkars were removed from the draft electoral roll for changing their address within the same constituency prior to the enumeration phase. They submitted Form 8, which is used for address changes or correcting entries in the existing voter roll, on December 2, 2025, two days before the initial deadline of the enumeration phase.

“We have tried to point out that Form 8 cannot be just left out of the loop. My client’s Form 8 was rejected on the last date of deciding the objections. So, my client had no chance to file an [appeal] against rejection of Form 8,” Rodrigues told the high court during the arguments. Their names were also missing in the final roll that came out on February 21.

Senior advocate Ashutosh Kumbhakoni, representing ECI, told the bench that unlike the routine SSR that merely updates an existing active roll, “Rule 25(2) of the RER, 1960 [Registration of Electors Rules, 1960] categorically mandates that where a roll is revised intensively, i.e. the process of SIR, it must be prepared afresh from the ground up.”

“A core feature of the SIR is that the Electoral Roll is prepared afresh. Under the SIR, the existing roll is not carried forward automatically. The existing roll serves only as a reference base,” said the ECI lawyer, arguing that as the roll is being prepared afresh, a name missing from the draft roll does not technically mean it has been “deleted”.

A name enters the draft roll only if the elector’s enumeration form is submitted, he said. “The draft, therefore, contains only those who have been enumerated. In SSR, only new or changed cases need to act, whereas in SIR, every elector must respond,” Kumbhakoni said.

The poll panel’s lawyer underlined that a voter who is not included in the draft roll “must file Form 6 to be included in the final ER, along with the prescribed declaration and supporting documents, during the claims and objections period.”

“A final roll is then published once these claims and objections have been decided. In effect, such a person is treated as a new applicant, a new voter, for the roll in issue. The fact that the name was on the earlier roll does not by itself secure a place in the new one,” he argued.