SIR, Election Commission Disclosures and the Questions Around Voter-List Administration
SIR, Election Commission Disclosures and the Questions Around Voter-List Administration
Recent reporting has brought renewed attention to internal objections recorded by Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi during the Election Commission of India’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise.
According to an investigation published by The Indian Express on September 23, 2026, the two Commissioners formally objected at least 14 times over about ten months to decisions and administrative steps concerning voter registration, deletion and restoration of names, Form 6, access to the electoral-roll database and appeals in West Bengal. The report says the objections were made to the Commission and concerned officials.
The Election Commission has maintained that decisions relating to SIR were taken unanimously and that internal questions and objections formed part of institutional deliberation. The issue therefore raises questions about how decisions, objections and approvals are documented within a multi-member constitutional body.
What the reported objections concerned
The reported objections cover several areas of electoral-roll administration.
The Indian Express reported that the Commissioners questioned:
changes connected with Form 6, the application used by new voters;
access by statutory electoral authorities to the ERONet and ECINet systems;
procedures for deletion and restoration of voter names;
the filing of appeals against decisions that included voters; and
the approval process for communications issued in the name of the Election Commission.
The report also said the Commissioners raised concerns about whether certain administrative and IT-related decisions had been taken with the knowledge or approval of the full Commission. These are reported objections and do not, by themselves, establish that any electoral decision was unlawful.
Form 6 and the new-voter question
The Indian Express reported that a question connected to the previous SIR electoral roll was added to Form 6. Applicants were asked whether their own name, or the name of a parent or grandparent, appeared in the electoral roll of the previous SIR.
The report said the question was not formally marked mandatory, but applicants could not proceed with the online application without answering it.
It also reported that Vivek Joshi had raised concerns in May about changing Form 6 without the relevant rules being amended, and that Sandhu subsequently recorded objections to the change.
These reports raise a factual administrative question: what was the formal approval and legal basis for the change, and how was the online implementation authorised?
The Commission’s records could clarify:
who approved the change;
whether any rule-amendment process was initiated;
how long the altered version remained online; and
how many applications were submitted during that period.
The role of electoral-roll software
The reported dispute also concerns the relationship between statutory officers and the software used to maintain electoral rolls.
The Election Commission’s electoral-roll process is implemented through digital systems including ERONet and ECINet. The Indian Express reported that the two Commissioners questioned whether access available to state-level statutory authorities had been restricted and whether the electoral-roll database was becoming more centralised.
One issue raised in the reporting is whether a statutory officer can implement a decision if the software does not provide the technical functionality required to record it.
The Goa case cited in the investigation illustrates this issue. The report said Electoral Registration Officers had found 97 voters eligible, but the software lacked a mechanism to reverse earlier deletions. The office of Goa’s Chief Electoral Officer reportedly sought a rollback facility eight times between February 11 and 17. The report said the 97 names remained out of the final roll.
The reported episode does not establish intentional exclusion. It does, however, raise a technical and administrative question about whether electoral software provides all legally necessary functions for correction and restoration.
West Bengal: 38.31 lakh appeals
West Bengal has been a major focus of the SIR process.
The Election Commission told the Supreme Court that 38.31 lakh appeals had been filed before appellate tribunals. According to the Commission's figures reported by The Indian Express, 22.21 lakh appeals were filed by voters whose names had been deleted and who sought inclusion, while 16.10 lakh appeals were filed against voters who had been included, seeking their deletion.
The Commission did not specify in the cited report who had filed the 16.10 lakh appeals.
The Supreme Court had earlier directed the adjudication of the eligibility of around 60.06 lakh electors flagged through the SIR process. According to the reported figures, 27.16 lakh names were subsequently ordered deleted by judicial officers. Appellate tribunals were established to hear challenges to those decisions.
The numbers make the administrative process significant in scale. They also make documentation important: records of who filed appeals, the legal basis of each appeal, notices to affected voters and the outcome of proceedings would allow the process to be independently understood.
What the Election Commission says
The Election Commission has said that SIR-related decisions were taken unanimously. The Commission has also defended the electoral-roll revision process and disputed political allegations concerning the exercise.
The Indian Express reported that the Commission did not respond to a questionnaire sent on September 21 about the issues raised by the two Commissioners before publication of its September 23 investigation.
The internal objections reported by the newspaper and the Commission's public position are therefore two parts of the same institutional record. Establishing what happened requires examining the underlying files, minutes, approvals, correspondence and technical logs rather than relying only on public statements.
What records could clarify the issue
Several categories of documents could provide a clearer factual picture:
Records of relevant full-Commission meetings and decisions.
The approval file and legal basis for the Form 6 modification.
Technical access and audit logs for ERONet and ECINet.
Records concerning the reported Goa rollback issue.
The authorisation chain for the 16.10 lakh West Bengal appeals.
Statistics showing deletions, restorations and appeal outcomes.
Records showing how written objections by Commissioners were considered and resolved.
Publication or independent examination of such records would help distinguish between internal administrative disagreement, technical limitations and any actual breach of law or procedure.
The larger administrative question
Revision of electoral rolls is a normal part of election administration. Electoral authorities have to address records involving deceased, shifted, duplicate or otherwise ineligible entries while also providing mechanisms for eligible voters to be included or restored.
The current debate is therefore not limited to the number of names added or removed. It also concerns how decisions are recorded, who has authority to make changes, how software implements those decisions and how affected voters can challenge them.
For a system operating at the scale of millions of voters, transparency in the decision-making chain and the technical audit trail is particularly important.
The central question is not simply what the final voter list contains. It is also whether the process by which each entry was added, removed or restored can be independently understood and verified.
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