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Snapshot of the day
November 5, 2026
Anirudh S.K., Kalrav Joshi
Form 6 is used to enroll new electors and contains a declaration saying its applicant is registering “for the first time”. Still, the Election Commission is using it to re-enroll existing voters who were deleted by the special intensive revision, and has tried to argue that such electors would not be making a false declaration by submitting the form. Is that convincing? The Bombay high court doesn’t seem to think so: on Thursday it ruled that a petitioner’s family who was struck off during the SIR would indeed have made a false declaration if they submitted Form 6 to get back on the rolls.
The court’s Goa bench was hearing the prominent case of Paresh Salgaonkar and his family, who submitted Forms 8 – used to modify electors’ details – during the SIR in view of having moved houses several years ago, but whose applications were not processed and their names taken off the rolls. Pavneet Singh Chadha quotes the court as saying:
… Had the petitioners filled in Form 6, they would be making a false declaration that their name did not exist in any electoral roll and that they were applying for inclusion in an electoral roll for the first time.
He reports that the court also took issue with their Forms 8 not being considered during the SIR. What happened in the Salgaonkars’ case, Justices Amit Jamsandekar and Valmiki Menezes said, amounted to a suspension of existing provisions and was thus “impermissible”. “… Even whilst the revision of a roll is ongoing, whether intensive or summary … the EROs [electoral registration officers] receiving Form 8 are bound to decide upon the application,” they added.
Of course, the EC disagrees. It requested the bench to stay its order – directing the authorities to register the Salgaonkars within ten days – so it can move the Supreme Court, but the judges declined. “How can there be a stay when we are giving a direction to include the name of a voter?” the bench asked according to Lisa Monteiro.
Meanwhile, Nirvachan Sadan has issued a fresh work allocation order formally bringing Seema Khanna, the EC’s director-general for IT who is among those at the centre of the storm surrounding the poll body in the wake of the Indian Express‘s landmark investigation, under the supervision of a senior deputy election commissioner. Maneesh Garg, an official in the EC, had removed this oversight in a work order he issued in July and which election commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had pointedly objected to, unusually to the cabinet secretary himself. The EC has previously clarified that this modified order was not implemented. (There’s more on the SIR in today’s Cable further below.)
Six years after the historic farmers’ agitation against the three farm laws deemed inimical to their livelihood, the Samyukt Kisan Morcha, the backbone of the 2020-21 protests, has called for demonstrations across the country on November 26. SKM leaders have said that they are reviving the agitation because the issues that forced them to the streets remain unresolved. Read this report from Asad Rizvi, which delves into the concerns that linger – despite the Modi government’s revocation of the three laws in November 2021 – and a fresh set of economic hurdles.
Former JNU students Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam
