Bombay HC at Goa: if citizens are excluded, what will we do with SIR?

Hearing Paresh Salgaoncar's petition for his family of six in Goa's Santa Cruz constituency, a division bench of Justices Amit S. Jamsandekar and Valmiki Menezes said on Monday that a voter who has shifted house faces a complete Catch-22: Form 6 would be a false declaration, Form 8 cannot be accepted without a draft-roll entry, and the enumeration form demands a declaration about an address the voter has left. The bench held that Rule 21 of the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960 requires a hearing before a name is struck from the existing roll, not the draft one. (The Indian Express)

• Division bench flagged a Catch-22 for voters who shifted house under the SIR
• Form 6 would be a false declaration; Form 8 needs a draft-roll entry the voter may lack
• Rule 21 requires a hearing before deleting a name from the existing roll, not the draft roll