New Delhi: No one will be prosecuted for using Form 6 to re-enter their name in electoral rolls, the Supreme Court verbally assured electors on Monday. It allayed fears that use of Form 6, which asks applicants to declare they are fresh voters, for re-inclusion in draft electoral rolls could invite prosecution for false declaration.The statement came from a bench of CJI Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohan while hearing a PIL against large-scale exclusion of names from Maharashtra’s draft electoral roll and as a response to senior advocate Aravind Datar’s plea that using Form 6 for re-inclusion would amount to lying under oath.
Will grant time to genuine voters to submit papers if out from final list: SC
The bench also said that if it found there were genuine voters whose names could not be included in the final electoral list, to be published on Nov 6, it could grant them more time to submit their documents for the purpose. A similar concern was raised by advocate Prashant Bhushan 10 days earlier while questioning the EC’s directive that voters whose names were deleted from Delhi’s draft electoral roll during SIR exercise use Form 6 to restore them in draft rolls.Datar said that with two crore voters excluded from Maharashtra’s draft electoral roll, including 1.22 crore on grounds of logical discrepancy, and the deadline for claims and objections ending on Oct 26, many voters who were removed on flimsy and non-existent grounds would have little chance of getting names restored.The senior advocate requested the bench to extend the Oct-26 deadline for those seeking inclusion of their names in the electoral roll. The bench asked the EC to file its response to the PIL by Nov 5 and said it would examine on that day whether extra time would be required for those seeking inclusion of names.
Datar said, “In Maharashtra, 33% of voters have been deleted. In Mumbai, 40% of the voters have been excluded. What is happening is people are asked to fill Form 6, which is meant for fresh voters. There is no provision for a person who had voted in the last three or four elections to get his name restored in the voter list. If he fills Form 6, which is meant for registration of fresh voters, then he would face prosecution for false declaration.”However, the CJI allayed these fears and said, “No one will be prosecuted for filling Form 6 seeking re-entering of their names in voter lists.” Datar said that since there was no imminent election in Maharashtra, the SC could direct EC not to finalise the electoral roll for the state on Nov 6 and postpone the schedule to enable genuine voters to re-enter them in voter lists. The bench also said, “If we find, even after the publication of the final electoral roll, that there are people who are genuine voters but still excluded, we can extend time for them to submit documents for the purpose of re-entering their names in voter lists.”