Election officials cannot force voters who change residences to sign new registration papers or pre-filled survey sheets during voter roll revisions, the Bombay High Court has ruled.
Doing so compels citizens to sign false declarations—a criminal offense carrying statutory penalties. A two-judge bench at the court's Goa seat, comprising Justice Valmiki Menezes and Justice Amit Jamsandekar, held that citizens relocating between addresses can only be required to submit Form 8.
Pressuring them to do otherwise breaks the law.
"The declaration that the petitioner was called upon to give, in the pre-filled enumeration form or in Form 6 or in the Form provided in the annexure D to the SIR would all result in the same being false and rendering the petitioners open to prosecution for offenses punishable under Section 31 of the RP Act," the bench stated.
The court pulled up Booth Level Officers (BLOs) and Electoral Registration Officers (EROs), calling their demands for Form 6 "completely misplaced." Under election rules, Form 6 carries a mandatory declaration certifying that an applicant is not registered on any electoral roll anywhere in the country—an assertion strictly reserved for first-time voters. Pre-filled enumeration forms similarly assert that an elector still lives at their previous address. Form 8, by contrast, exists solely to update residence data and transfer names cleanly between constituencies.
Perjury traps have no place in voter rolls. When election field agents compel relocated citizens to sign Form 6, they force them to swear they are unregistered beginners. If those citizens instead sign pre-filled enumeration sheets, they attest to living in homes they have long abandoned. Under Section 31 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, knowingly making a false declaration to an electoral authority is punishable with imprisonment up to one year, a fine, or both.
The bench stepped in to halt that trap.
The ruling lands alongside broader regulatory firefighting over voter roll accuracy. The Election Commission moved Friday to grant another opportunity to electors excluded across seven states—Delhi, Maharashtra, Haryana, Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand, Telangana, and Nagaland. These electors had been flagged under the Absent, Shifted, Dead, and Duplicate (ASDD) categories after their enumeration forms failed to return during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), leading to their deletion from draft rolls.
The Commission directed state chief electoral officers to institute a monitoring mechanism immediately, ensuring eligible electors regain their spots on the final electoral rolls ahead of upcoming polling cycles without facing disqualification or duplicate entries.