Delhi High Court rejects plea alleging exclusion of homeless from electoral rolls during SIR

The Delhi High Court has dismissed a public interest litigation (PIL) alleging that homeless persons in the Capital risked being left out of the electoral rolls during the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR), holding that an existing mechanism provides for their enrolment even without a fixed address.

A Bench of Chief Justice D.K. Upadhyaya and Justice Tejas Karia said the apprehension raised by petitioner Indu Prakash Singh appeared to be without basis, noting that the electoral system already provided for the inclusion of homeless persons.

The court said there was no “vacuum” in the existing mechanism and that the petitioner had made “bald averments” regarding the alleged exclusion of persons displaced by demolition drives in Delhi over the years.

“The extract of the Draft Electoral Roll ... clearly showing the category of homeless persons with their name, age, gender and photograph, and the house number as ‘0’, clearly demonstrates that the ECI is already implementing the process of inclusion of the homeless persons in the Draft Electoral Roll as provided in the Manual during the SIR exercise,” the Bench said in its August 19 order.

The court also noted that an elector whose name is omitted from the electoral roll because of demolition or relocation can submit Form 6 under the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960, for inclusion.

Under the Electoral Rolls Manual provides, after a homeless person submits the required details, the Booth Level Officer is required to visit the address mentioned in Form 6 for more than one night to ascertain where the person ordinarily sleeps, the court noted.

The PIL claimed that Delhi had around three lakh homeless persons and argued that the house-to-house enumeration adopted for the SIR created a “structural barrier” to their participation in the electoral process.

“The ongoing SIR exercise in Delhi presupposes the ability of Booth Level Officers to physically locate existing electors at their recorded addresses. Consequently, persons who are already homeless or are rendered homeless or displaced by demolitions are at risk of being systematically excluded in violation of their right to franchise, later resulting in even their citizenship being questioned,” the PIL said.

The Election Commission, however, told the court that provisions were already in place for the enrolment of homeless persons and pavement dwellers who did not possess documentary proof of ordinary residence.