SabrangIndia https://sabrangindia.in/ News Related to Human Rights Thu, 12 Nov 2026 09:32:05 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.2.2 https://sabrangindia.in/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Favicon_0.png SabrangIndia https://sabrangindia.in/ 32 32 Vote Chori: Fake Applications to Delete 28 Voters; Uttarakhand court directs police to register FIR https://sabrangindia.in/vote-chori-fake-applications-to-delete-28-voters-uttarakhand-court-directs-police-to-register-fir/ Thu, 12 Nov 2026 09:32:05 +0000 https://sabrangindia.in/?p=50076 A concrete case of allegations of criminality and violation of election law and rules, especially related to the Form 7 method of ‘mass deletions’ has come to light from Uttarakhand, with a BLA-2 (Ikram Ali himself petitioning the court for registration of an FIR after his identity and email were misused for 28 deletions: Ali had also approached the Haldwani judicial magistrate for directions to register an FIR which the court has directed on October 6.

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]]> NEW DELHI – A judicial magistrate court in Haldwani, Uttarakhand, has directed police to register a First Information Report (FIR) and investigate allegations that Form-7 applications were fraudulently submitted in the name of a Booth Level Agent (BLA-2) to seek the deletion of 28 voters from the electoral rolls. The matter came to light after the complainant and petitioner–Ikram Ali — himself the BLA-2 in question whose identity had been purportedly fraudulently misused –had filed complaints for redressal. Alleging that he informed concerned election officials in writing, and when faced with silence sent his complaint to the Banbhoolpura police station by speed post on August 24, which was received by the police on August 27, according to the court order. The order was passed on October 6, The grave issue has been reported in Hindustan, Dainik Jagran and Hindustan Gazette.

After allegedly receiving no effective action at the police station, Ali submitted yet another complaint to the Senior Superintendent of Police, Nainital, on August 29. The complaint was received on August 31, the order recorded. However, the court noted that despite the complaints, no FIR had been registered and no effective investigative action had been taken, prompting Ali to approach the magistrate. In its order, the court examined the police report sought in the matter as is required under Section 175 (3) of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), 2023.[1]

Advocate Manish Kumar Pandey, represents complainant, Ikram Ali, a resident of Indiranagar in Banbhulpura. While rejecting the stay application, the court scheduled the next hearing on the revision petition for December 7, 2026, noting that the non-registration of an FIR to date is also a serious matter.

Judicial Magistrate First Class Shubhangi Gupta, in an order dated October 6, accepted a petition filed by Ikram Ali, a resident of Ward No. 31 in Haldwani, under Section 175(3) of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), 2023. The court directed the officer in charge of Banbhoolpura police station to register an FIR on the basis of the complaint received on August 24 and investigate the matter in accordance with law.

The Magistrate’s order relates to serious illegalities in the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. Ali, the petitioner and original complainant before the police, has reportedly told the court that he was working as a BLA-2 during the revision process when he learnt on August 20 that Form-7 applications had been submitted online in his name on August 12, seeking the deletion of 28 voters from Part No. 134 of the electoral roll. According to the petition, Ali denied submitting any such applications, either for himself or on behalf of any other voter. He also denied authorising anyone to file them in his name.

In the petition, Ali alleged that unidentified persons had misused his identity to prepare and submit the applications, purportedly presenting themselves as him before the election office. Ali has also contended that he informed the concerned election officials in writing after learning about the applications. He subsequently sent a written complaint to Banbhoolpura police station by speed post on August 24, which was received by the police on August 27, according to the court order.

It was only after he reportedly received no effective action at the police station, that Ali submitted another complaint to the Senior Superintendent of Police, Nainital, on August 29. The complaint was received on August 31, the order stated. The court observed that despite the complaints, no FIR had been registered and no effective investigative action had been taken, prompting Ali to approach the magistrate.

In the first instance, as observed by the court in its order, the court examined the police report sought in the matter. The report stated that the complaint concerned alleged forgery and identity theft in connection with SIR Form-7 applications. It also suggested that the complainant could raise his objection before the relevant Assistant Returning Officer under the existing procedure.

According to available media reports, Ikram Ali, the BLA-2 in question has stated that he reached Delhi on October 30, where he met senior Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi, and P. Chidambaram. In addition, he met with more than 20 MPs and senior leaders of the INDIA alliance, including a representative of SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, TMC MP Mahua Moitra, and former Jammu & Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti. Ikram informed all the leaders about the misuse of portal IDs and the deletion of voters’ names from the list using fake identities in Haldwani’s Indiranagar area. According to Ikram, all the leaders assured him that they are keeping a close watch on the matter and will take the issue forward.

The controversy surrounding the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls is no longer limited to concerns about voters being asked to prove their eligibility or submit forms to remain on the rolls. The conscious and deliberate misuse of Form 7 for third party deletions, that too by dominant political actors, has been a recurring aspect of the controversial SIR process.

Widely reported investigations by The Hindu, both in Delhi and Karnataka have raised another serious question: who can or should initiate the process for deletion of voters, on what basis, and how effectively are such deletion processes being checked?

Detailed directions by the Court

In the Order dated October 6, the magistrate held that the availability of an alternative remedy before the election authorities was not sufficient grounds to reject the plea seeking a police investigation.

“The remedy available before the Assistant Returning Officer and the relief sought by the applicant operate in different fields and are not alternatives to each other,” the court observed.

The court noted that the election authority’s role was limited to matters such as correction and maintenance of electoral rolls, whereas the complaint concerned an alleged offence committed by unidentified persons.

The order of the court further observes that the relevant election authority did not have the power to investigate the criminal offence or obtain electronic records such as user IDs and login details, registered mobile numbers and email addresses, OTP and authentication information, IP addresses, and device-related records that could help identify those responsible.

The court said the mere availability of an alternative remedy was not sufficient grounds to dismiss the petition.

The magistrate referred to the Supreme Court’s judgments in *Lalita Kumari v. Government of Uttar Pradesh* (2014) 2 SCC 1 and *Priyanka Srivastava v. State of U.P.* (2015) 6 SCC 287 while examining the requirements for directing police action.

Referring to *Lalita Kumari*, the court noted that where information prima facie discloses a cognisable offence, registration of an FIR is a legal duty of the police, followed by an investigation in accordance with law.

The court also observed that the police report had not rejected the complainant’s allegations or stated that no cognisable offence was made out. Nor did it refer to any investigation conducted at the police-station level.

The magistrate said that, at first glance, the alleged submission of applications in the complainant’s name by concealing his actual identity and impersonating him in official proceedings appeared to fall within the scope of a suspected criminal offence.

The court clarified, however, that it was not expressing a final opinion on the offences involved, which would have to be determined during the investigation.

Allowing the petition, the court directed the officer in charge of Banbhoolpura police station to register an FIR on the basis of Ali’s complaint dated August 24, 2026, and investigate the case in accordance with law.

It also ordered that a copy of the order be sent immediately to the concerned police station.

The order does not establish who submitted the disputed Form-7 applications or whether the 28 voters were ultimately removed from the electoral rolls. Those issues remain subject to investigation.

[1] Unlike its predecessor, Section 156 (3) of the Code of Criminal Procedure this section—175 (3) has controversially added “several procedural” steps ostensibly to prevent misuse of magisterial powers. These include submission of the said complaint to the Superintendant of Police (SP), accompanied by an affidavit as also recording of the police version.


Related:

SIR: Form 7 controversies raise fresh questions about the continued power to delete voters

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]]> Diwali 2026: Smoke, noise, fires and the failure of restraint https://sabrangindia.in/diwali-2026-smoke-noise-fires-and-the-failure-of-restraint/ Thu, 12 Nov 2026 07:43:15 +0000 https://sabrangindia.in/?p=50064 Across cities, Diwali celebrations brought severe pollution, excessive noise, fires, deaths and violence, the events raise questions about civic responsibility and enforcement: when existing rules repeatedly fail, what measures can ensure celebrations do not endanger others?

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]]> The Diwali night began with celebrations, but in several cities, it was followed by smoke, severe pollution and a large number of emergency calls. In Delhi, air quality deteriorated sharply as the evening progressed.

On November 8, at 10 pm, the city’s overall AQI stood at 371, while 20 monitoring stations were in the “severe” category. Smoke hung over roads and residential neighbourhoods, visibility dropped and residents reported difficulty breathing. The manner and method of India’s recording of pollution levels (AQI) is controversial. Independent platforms like AQI.in and IQAir reported morning readings between 600 and 610 (“hazardous”). The numbers differ because of Indian authorities/government playing around with statistics: India’s official National Air Quality Index (NAQI) caps its scale at 500 and averages data over 24 hours. Private trackers typically use the US EPA standard—which has stricter thresholds for fine particulate matter (\ (PM_ {2.5}\)) and no upper cap—and report real-time hourly spikes rather than 24-hour averages! So, in reality air quality in Delhi was worse than what was propagated.

Restrictions were ostensibly already in place, with green firecrackers permitted only during prescribed hours. Yet crackers continued to be burst in several parts of the city, and pollution continued to rise through the night. The following morning, Delhi recorded some of its worst pollution readings in years, with PM[1] 2.5 concentrations crossing 2,000 micrograms per cubic metre at several locations. At Mundka, the reading reached 3,744 µg/m³, while other stations recorded concentrations above 3,000.

The national 24-hour standard for PM 2.5 is 60 µg/m³[2].

These are not marginal departures from permissible levels. They clearly show the scale of pollution produced when a city already struggling with winter air quality enters a night of widespread firecracker bursting. AQI can be checked here: Link: https://www.aqi.in/in

When the monitors went silent

The pollution issue also raised serious questions about monitoring and public information. According to the Indian Express, on Diwali night, 45 of Delhi’s 59 monitoring stations had missing hourly readings for at least one pollutant. By midnight, 29 stations were not reporting some readings, and by 1 am the number had risen to 36. This was also the period when particulate pollution was peaking.

Data later released by the Delhi Pollution Control Committee showed that several of the missing periods coincided with extremely high concentrations. An analysis found that all 125 station-hour readings missing from the Central Pollution Control Board’s records were above 1,000 µg/m³ in the corresponding DPCC data, the Times of India reported.

The gaps matter because people cannot protect themselves from a danger whose extent is not being clearly recorded or publicly reflected during the period when exposure is at its highest.

Stubble burning cannot explain away everything

The issue of Delhi’s air pollution has often been reduced to one familiar explanation: farm fires and stubble burning. Crop-residue burning remains a serious source of pollution across the wider northern air shed. On Diwali day, Punjab recorded 1,152 farm fires, the highest single-day figure of the season, sharply increasing the state’s cumulative tally.

But acknowledging the contribution of stubble burning cannot explain away what happened within Delhi as evening celebrations intensified. The pollution surge followed sunset and continued through the night, with experts pointing to stagnant winter conditions combined with substantial firecracker emissions. At several locations, pollution levels rose sharply during the hours when crackers were being burst.

 

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Mumbai also recorded sharp localised spikes after nightfall, while several inland cities in Maharashtra reported poor and very poor air quality. Pune, Pimpri-Chinchwad, Nagpur, Malegaon and other cities recorded serious deterioration.

The available evidence does not require a choice between farm fires and firecrackers. Both can contribute. The problem arises when one source is repeatedly invoked to minimise or divert attention from another.

Mumbai’s averages and the air people actually breathed

Mumbai initially appeared to have had a better Diwali, with its citywide AQI lower than during the corresponding period last year. But citywide averages concealed what was happening in individual neighbourhoods.

In Andheri, PM2.5 stood at 42 at 8 pm. Within two hours, it had surged to nearly 500 in one set of readings and even higher on private monitoring platforms.

Malad recorded similarly extreme levels, while Chembur saw PM10 concentrations of around 480. Other parts of the city also recorded sharp spikes after dark.

A citywide average may suggest improvement, but a resident does not breathe the city’s average. People breathe the air immediately around their homes, workplaces and neighbourhoods.

This is particularly important for children, elderly people and those already affected by respiratory or other health conditions.

The morning after Diwali brought little relief to several areas. Eight monitoring locations in Mumbai entered the “poor” category, with Bandra East among the worst affected.

Even the upper floors are not an escape

A study in Mumbai added another dimension to the problem of urban pollution. There is often an assumption that living high above the street means living above the worst of the city’s polluted air. The findings suggested otherwise.

According to a study by the Mumbai Ecological Research and Analysis Group (MERAG), across residential complexes in Wadala, upper floors of high-rises could be up to 40 per cent more polluted than lower levels. Researchers found a persistent increase in pollution with height in the buildings examined. Smoke and fine particles do not necessarily remain at street level. Air currents, distant emissions and complicated wind patterns created by clusters of high-rise buildings can carry and trap pollutants at higher elevations. For residents of increasingly vertical cities, moving higher may not always mean moving away from pollution.

Less noise, but still too much

There was one limited positive trend. Mumbai’s peak firecracker noise levels were reported to have fallen sharply compared with levels recorded two decades ago. A recent study found peak readings significantly lower than those recorded in 2006. \

But lower does not necessarily mean acceptable or safe.

A peak reading of around 93 decibels was still above permissible ambient noise limits for residential areas. Mumbai has notified silence zones where firecrackers are prohibited and restrictions also exist on bursting crackers late at night.

The purpose of these restrictions is not difficult to understand. An elderly person, a patient, an infant or someone seriously ill cannot simply choose to stop hearing explosions outside the home.

The issue is therefore not merely whether some people enjoy loud celebrations. It is whether others have any right to peace, rest and safety within their own homes.

That question lies at the heart of the larger problem.

Are appeals and restrictions enough?

For years, the response has largely followed a familiar pattern. Courts issue directions. Authorities prescribe timings. Green crackers are promoted. Silence zones are notified. Appeals are made for restraint.

Yet every year there are reports of violations.

But later, allowed certified green crackers in Delhi-NCR for two Diwali days.

On October 15, Bombay High Court had extended the total ban on bursting firecrackers on public streets, lanes, and footpaths to apply throughout the year and across all festivals, including Navratri, Diwali, and Christmas.

The question that now needs to be asked more directly is whether limited permissions and appeals to voluntary compliance can actually be enforced at the scale required in large Indian cities.

If the answer is repeatedly no, then the debate over stronger restrictions or prohibitions cannot simply be dismissed as hostility towards a festival.

A ban or prohibition is not automatically the answer. But if existing regulation repeatedly produces toxic air, excessive noise, injuries and deaths, the effectiveness of the present system must be honestly examined.

The question is whether India can have a Diwali that is celebratory without turning into a night when the elderly and sick live in dread of the next explosion.

A ten-year-old and a firecracker

In Delhi’s Narela, a ten-year-old boy died after a firecracker burst in his hands. He had reportedly been holding a flower-pot firecracker outside his home when it exploded.

The flames burned his chest, and his family initially believed the injury might be minor. He later fainted, was taken to hospital and declared dead. On the same Diwali, the Delhi Fire Services received 281 calls, with at least 24 related to fires caused by bursting crackers.

The danger is known. The repeated injuries are known. The risks of allowing children to handle firecrackers are known. Yet the question remains whether the knowledge of these dangers is reflected in how people actually behave.

Fires across the Mumbai region

In Mumbai, firecrackers were linked to 137 of the 142 fire calls received on Diwali. In Thane, all 44 fire calls received by Sunday night were reportedly caused by firecrackers.

Across the Mumbai Metropolitan Region, more than 500 fire incidents were reported over the weekend.

A day after Diwali, authorities in Mumbai, Nagpur and Thane imposed restrictions on rockets and similar aerial firecrackers following the surge in fire incidents.

In Mumbai, a lift operator died after being trapped as smoke spread through a high-rise building.

Other fires were also reported in residential and commercial structures.

The pattern again raises a question about regulation. Why do additional restrictions so often follow major incidents rather than preventing them?

Fifty people rescued in Thane

In Thane, a major fire engulfed a residential building during the Diwali night. Residents fled through smoke-filled passages, while some took shelter in balconies and utility ducts.

Around 50 people were rescued as the fire spread through several floors of the 17-storey building. An elderly resident described being trapped as flames and smoke spread, while others sheltered with ageing parents.

Firefighters worked through the night, while the exact cause was examined. The episode again demonstrated how vulnerable densely populated vertical cities can become when fire spreads through a residential building.

Thane’s fire services were also reportedly facing a serious manpower shortage, and firefighters from Mumbai had to be called in.

Cities have grown taller and more densely populated. The risks associated with fire have grown with them.

Two families, twelve deaths

In Madhya Pradesh, the scale of tragedy was even greater. Six members of a family were killed in a fire in Katni, including three children and a two-month-old infant.

The fire broke out in a residential-cum-commercial building, and the family was trapped upstairs as the blaze spread. A preliminary inquiry pointed to an earthen lamp as a possible source. The fire was fuelled by highly inflammable material stored below, while rescue teams struggled for hours to save those trapped inside. The district collector later apologised to families and residents, acknowledging that six lives could not be saved despite the deployment of fire tenders.

On the same night, another fire in Seoni killed six members of another family. In both cases, families were asleep when the fires spread.

Twelve people from two families were dead, including children, elderly people and members of different generations.

The other problem: how do we live with one another?

The pollution and fires are one part of the story. The other is the increasingly visible absence of civic restraint. Firecrackers are burst inside housing societies, near parked vehicles, beneath balconies and beside buildings occupied by hundreds of residents.

Those who do not wish to participate have little control over what happens around them.

An elderly person cannot prevent smoke from entering the home. A family with an infant cannot control where a rocket will land. A patient cannot necessarily escape a night of explosions by simply closing a window.

The issue is not whether people have a right to celebrate. It is whether celebration gives anyone the right to disregard the safety and peace of those living around them.

This is a question of civic sense and shared urban life.

One argument, one death

In Mumbai, a dispute connected with firecrackers ended in the death of a 19-year-old. Shubhankar Mukhiya and his friends were heading towards Juhu beach when crackers were burst near a parked motorcycle.

An argument followed. According to police, the motorcycle belonged to one of the accused, and the confrontation initially appeared to have ended.

Police alleged that the accused later returned with two others and that Mukhiya and his friends were attacked with kicks and punches. Mukhiya fell, suffered a severe head injury and later died.

A disagreement over firecrackers had escalated into an alleged fatal assault.

The question is not simply what caused the argument. It is why an increasingly ordinary disagreement in public life can so quickly become an occasion for violence.

Violence around the celebration

In Delhi, another teenager did not return home from a Diwali outing. Sixteen-year-old Devansh had reportedly gone out with friends to buy crackers.

Police said that a group of men allegedly tried to snatch his money and phone. When he resisted, he was stabbed and later died after being taken to hospital. The circumstances were different from the Mumbai case, but both the incidents form part of a larger and troubling picture of aggression in public spaces. Diwali is meant to be a festival of homes, families and communities. Yet the night also produced fights, assaults and confrontations.

When those enforcing the rules are attacked

There is another dimension to the problem. Rules are meaningful only if someone can enforce them. When police personnel or other officials attempt to enforce restrictions on firecrackers, noise or public safety, they can themselves become targets of hostility or violence.

The image of a lone policeman attempting to enforce a rule, while facing an aggressive crowd or being attacked, raises a basic question about civic conduct. What does it say about respect for law when a person performing a public duty becomes the object of anger merely for attempting to enforce regulations?

The issue cannot be reduced to firecrackers alone. It concerns a wider relationship between citizens, public authority and shared rules.

Are we becoming an insensate and uncivil society?

This is the more difficult question raised by the events surrounding Diwali. Are Indians becoming increasingly insensitive to the effect of their actions on those living around them? Are we becoming more aggressive, less restrained and less willing to accept even the most basic rules of shared civic life?

The evidence of one festival cannot answer such a large question by itself. But it can expose a pattern.

Smoke is treated as someone else’s problem. Noise is treated as a neighbour’s problem. A falling rocket is treated as an accident waiting to happen somewhere else.

Rules are often accepted in principle but resented when they are enforced against us. And when a disagreement arises, too often the response is not restraint but aggression.

The old, the sick and the very young have little power in this situation. They cannot negotiate with the person bursting crackers outside their home. The person who chooses silence cannot impose it on the person who chooses noise.

The family that follows the rules cannot guarantee that its neighbours will do the same.

Urban life requires restraint

Living in a crowded city necessarily requires limits.

A person living in a high-rise, an apartment block or a densely populated neighbourhood does not live in isolation. Every action takes place close to someone else.

That is why urban life requires civic restraint.

It requires recognising that a celebration in one flat can become a disturbance in another, and that an act carried out for pleasure can impose danger or suffering on someone who has not chosen to participate.

This is not an argument against celebration.

It is an argument against the belief that celebration means freedom from responsibility.

The question before the next Diwali

The Diwali of 2026 again demonstrated the limits of relying only on appeals, partial restrictions and voluntary compliance.

Court directions and institutional controls remain important, but they are meaningful only when they can be implemented and enforced.

The debate must therefore move beyond the familiar argument between those who want unrestricted celebrations and those who seek restrictions.

The more practical question is what actually works.

Can limited permissions, prescribed timings and appeals to civic sense deliver a genuinely safer and less polluted Diwali?

If they cannot, should authorities consider stronger restrictions, clearer prohibitions and designated spaces where activities involving serious risks can be more effectively controlled?

A saner Diwali should not be impossible to imagine.

It should not be a night when elderly people and patients dread the next explosion, when children lose their lives, when homes and high-rises catch fire, or when those attempting to enforce the rules face violence.

What the Diwali night left behind

A ten-year-old died after a firecracker burst in his hands. A 19-year-old died after an argument connected with crackers escalated into an alleged assault, while another teenager was stabbed after going out to buy Diwali crackers.

Hundreds of fire calls were received across the Mumbai region, around 50 people were rescued from a burning high-rise in Thane, and twelve members of two families died in separate fires in Madhya Pradesh.

Delhi’s pollution monitors developed gaps as particulate levels surged, while corresponding data later showed some readings in the thousands.

Mumbai’s overall air quality appeared better in aggregate, but individual neighbourhoods recorded dramatic spikes after dark. Noise levels may have fallen over the years, but they continued to exceed permissible limits.

The festival has passed, but the questions remain.

What kind of institutional controls can actually ensure compliance? Is a stronger prohibition necessary where limited regulation repeatedly fails? And what does our conduct during these celebrations say about our capacity to live with consideration for others?

These are not questions about whether people should celebrate their festivals.

They are questions about how they celebrate them, and whether celebration can coexist with civic responsibility, public safety and respect for the people living around us.

A festival cannot become an occasion when the old and sick live in dread, young lives are lost, public spaces turn violent and even those attempting to enforce the law face aggression.

The smoke, noise, fires and violence of this Diwali should force a more serious conversation before the next one arrives.

 

[1] PM means Particulate Matter (also known as particle pollution), which is a mix of microscopic solid particles and liquid droplets suspended in the air).

[2] µg/m³ stands for micrograms per cubic meter and measures the mass concentration of a pollutant in a specific volume of air.

 

Related:

Diwali has been celebrated by Muslims for centuries

Toxic Air To Blame For Lung Cancer; No Longer Just A Smoker’s Disease

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]]> Maharashtra Gokul Controversy: Mahayuti’s bid to seize control of the state’s largest milk cooperative? https://sabrangindia.in/maharashtra-gokul-controversy-mahayutis-bid-to-seize-control-of-the-states-largest-milk-cooperative/ Wed, 11 Nov 2026 12:41:33 +0000 https://sabrangindia.in/?p=50051 Faced with a narrow defeat last week --a Congress-led panel had won 13 seats to Mahayuti’s 12 seats last week, the Fadnavis government in a widely criticised move, altered rules to nominate members and give them voting rights; this tilted the balance in Mahayuti’s favour after a courtroom drama that first directed elections and thereafter refused to stay or scrutinise the hastily changed rules; Fadnavis Govt alters rules & Voila(!), Mahayuti Candidate is Chairman of Gokul Dairy after a courtroom drama also unfolds last week

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]]> Brute majority as exercised by the union government was/is also evident in the state of Maharashtra. Despite stiff opposition from dairy farmers in Kolhapur, led by Congress MLC, Satej Patil, the Fadnavis-led Mahayuti government “seized” control of the lucrative Gokul dairy on November 10, yesterday.

Tens of thousands of farmers of Kolhapur and areas around —a sea of humanity —angrily joined a rally led by led by Congress MLC Satej Patil in Kolhapur on Monday, November 9, to protest the promulgation of an ordinance that allows the state government to nominate five directors to the boards of large federal cooperative societies, of whom four get voting rights. Dairy farmers from Thane, Sangli, Satara, Pune and Dharashiv participated in the protest march, titled Sangharsh Morcha, over 1.5km, alleging that the government move undermined democratic principles and the autonomy of the cooperative sector. These were visuals on social media that reflected rural Maharashtra’s outrage against the brazen attempt by the Fadnavis-led Mahayuti government to seize control over this dairy that has 5.5 lakh farmers associated with it (with at least five-and-half-thousand minor cooperatives linked to Gokul).

Monday’s rally had participants, which included women farmers, arrived in bullock carts and brought buffaloes, horses and other animals. Banners alleging “vote and power theft” were erected at multiple locations. Former MP Raju Shetti, Kolhapur MP Shahu Chhatrapati, Sangli MP Vishal Patil, MP Dhairyasheel Mohite-Patil, MLAs Jayant Patil and Vishwajeet Kadam, and MPSC student activist Vivekanand Patil joined the march. Many elected representatives from local bodies and cooperative institutions were also present.

However, the very next day, a controversial decision of the Aurangabad Bench of the Bombay High Court, that had first directed elections of the 25 members later (vacation bench) refused to stay the hastily changed rules dated November 4 that granted the MahaYuti the majority! Later this month, the Bombay high court is slated to hear a petition by the Congress-led panel for quashing the controversial amendment. As mentioned above, in its hearing on November 9, the court had refused to stay the election. However, the court has said that the results of the elections would be subject to the court’s final decision on the matter and had asked Gokul officials to keep the ballots of the elected directors and the government-nominated directors separate.

Former legislator from the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) Rajesh Patil, representing a Mahayuti-backed panel, was elected as the chairperson, defeating the Congress-led panel’s Shashikant Patil-Chuyekar. Thereafter, the newly elected chairman of the Kolhapur District Milk Producers’ Union (Gokul) and former MLA Rajesh Patil pays floral tribute to the statue of Gokul founder Anandrao Patil-Chuyekar, in Kolhapur on November 10, 2026. The board of Gokul, Maharashtra’s largest milk-producing co-operative, saw a Mahayuti-backed member being elected its chairperson on Tuesday (November 10), days after the Maharashtra government allowed four nominated members to vote, thereby upturning a Congress-led panel’s victory in elections held last month. Rajesh Patil bagged 16 votes, whereas Patil-Chuyekar bagged 13 votes.

The dairy is Maharashtra’s largest milk co-operative – with a turnover of over Rs 5,000 crore – and works with more than 8,400 milk societies and nearly five and a half lakh milk producers in the crucial western Maharashtra region. Control over Gokul allows political leaders to be in direct contact with lakhs of families, and also allows them to wield considerable financial influence over their lives through the disbursal of payments to them.

The election to the 25-member board of directors was held on October 19 and saw the Congress-led panel, led by Congress MLC Satej Patil, bagging a narrow victory over the Mahayuti panel, bagging 13 votes to the Mahayuti panel’s 12 votes.

However, two weeks after the elections, the Devendra Fadnavis government on November 4 promulgated an ordinance nominating five members to the boards of major co-operative institutions like Gokul and giving four of the five nominated members the right to vote in the chairperson’s election.

The move garnered heavy flak – Congress leader and Lok Sabha LoP Rahul Gandhi said the move was a “theft of milk producers’ votes”, whereas Cockroach Janta Party chief Abhijeet Dipke alleged that Fadnavis was attempting a “hostile takeover” of Gokul. Satej Patil criticised the decision and said it would make elections redundant.

“If the government’s policy is to disregard the people’s mandate and take decisions according to its own wishes, then there is no point in holding elections. It would be better to cancel all elections, appoint government nominees and let them run sugar factories, spinning mills and municipal corporations,” he had said. Reported the Indian Express.

Satej Patil had also organised a protest in Kolhapur on Monday (November 9), which saw tens of thousands of protesters march on the streets of the city.

The move for this brazen change of rules had even been opposed even by former Chief Justice of India B.R. Gavai who, in a legal opinion offered to the Congress-led panel’s advocate Shrikrishna Ganbavale, reportedly said such a move was not “sustainable on the ground that such an action would be hit by the doctrine of manifest arbitrariness and would amount to colourable exercise of powers.”

Ganbavale submitted Gavai’s opinion to the Fadnavis government. Despite this, the very next day, the Fadnavis government approved an amendment in the Maharashtra Co-operative Societies Act, allowing government-nominated and designated directors to vote in the elections of a chairperson or other members.

It was this hastily crafter move that tilted the scales in favour of the Mahayuti panel’s candidate and, as was widely expected, Tuesday’s election saw Patil bagging 16 votes and registering a victory, even though the original election results had seen the Congress-panel emerging victorious. Fadnavis had defended the amendment, pointing to the lack of a quorum in a meeting held on October 29 to elect a chairperson. The Mahayuti directors had abstained from the meeting, thereby preventing the meeting from reaching the quorum of 14 directors.

“One side had won 13 seats and the other 12 seats. Therefore, the quorum required for the meeting was not being met. The meeting had to be cancelled twice due to a lack of quorum. If the meeting had been cancelled for the third time due to a lack of quorum, the election itself would have been cancelled. That is why the government took the decision,” Fadnavis had posted on ‘X’, in response to Gandhi’s criticism.

However, Congress leaders have rejected Fadnavis’s explanation, pointing to the fact that the Mahayuti directors could have been asked to remain present for the board meeting, instead of abstaining. This, they said, would have ensured adequate quorum for the meeting to take place.

Why Gokul maters and could be a predecessor in other ‘take-overs’

Every day, twice a day, they together collect and distribute milk that results in come worth Rs 1 crore approximately every eight days and close to Rs 5,000 crores annually. This attempt by Fadnavis to seize control is being viewed as a devious route to capturing control of both this sector and its rich earnings. The entire economy of Kolhapur rests on this and is at the centre of the economic structure of the district.

Critiques recall how prior to 2023 state elections in Karnataka and a crude bid to “replace” the popular local dairy brand of Nandini (also a cooperative structure) by the Gujarat-run Amul (National Dairy Development Board, Anand).

Watch this 2023 Video on the issue here

As senior journalist, Niranjan Takle –also an independent youtuber states (at 28.40 minutes) in this interview with Bushra Khanam, it is only under the Narendra Modi government that a ‘Co-Operative Minustry’ was created or brought into the Union Ministry and Amit Shah, Home Minister given the portfolio. Takle also points out that Gyanesh Kumar, the controversial Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) was previously Secretary under Shah to this Ministry and, during this tenure worked with the Gujarat (Anand)-based NDDB to “expand rural dairy infrastructure” across states. For critiques including Takle this is a sign that the move of the MahaYuti government is first to gain control over a lucrative economic base that currently is “owned” by farmers of Kolhapur and second, to give economic control and advantage (away from Maharashtra’s farmers) to Gujarat!

As senior journalist, Niranjan Takle –also an independent youtuber states (at 28.40 minutes) in this interview with Bushra Khanam, it is only under the Narendra Modi government that a ‘Co-Operative Minustry’ was created or brought into the Union Ministry and Amit Shah, Home Minister given the portfolio. Takle also points out that Gyanesh Kumar, the controversial Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) was previously Secretary under Shah to this Ministry and, during this tenure worked with the Gujarat (Anand)-based NDDB to “expand rural dairy infrastructure” across states. For critiques including Takle this is a sign that the move of the MahaYuti government is first to gain control over a lucrative economic base that currently is “owned” by farmers of Kolhapur and second, to give economic control and advantage (away from Maharashtra’s farmers) to Gujarat!

The Video (in Hindi) may be viewed here.

Why Gokul is key

Gokul dairy is the state’s largest milk producers’ co-operative, and collects over 17 lakh litres of milk from nearly five lakh milk producers every day. While most of the producers are based in and around Kolhapur district, Gokul’s distribution is spread across Maharashtra, as well as parts of Karnataka and Goa.

Controlling Gokul allows political leaders to exert influence over lakhs of families across western Maharashtra. The region has traditionally been a stronghold of the Congress and the NCP. Control over Gokul will also allow the BJP to fledge its wings in the region.

Related:

Failure of BJP-led Mahayuti Government in management of fertilisers & procurement

Maharashtra SIR: Over 2 crore names left off draft rolls; report finds uneven burden across regions and groups

Labour rights, health of workers hit in the name of “reform”: PUCL Maharashtra

The post Maharashtra Gokul Controversy: Mahayuti’s bid to seize control of the state’s largest milk cooperative? appeared first on SabrangIndia.

]]> SIR: Form 7 controversies raise fresh questions about the continued power to delete voters https://sabrangindia.in/sir-form-7-controversies-raise-fresh-questions-about-the-continued-power-to-delete-voters/ Wed, 11 Nov 2026 05:31:50 +0000 https://sabrangindia.in/?p=50042 The meeting Election Commission held on September 26, 2026 provided certain procedures for voters left out or issued notices during SIR, but fresh cases from Delhi and Karnataka show that the wider machinery through which existing names can be challenged and processed for deletion remains in place

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]]> The controversy surrounding the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls is no longer limited to concerns about voters being asked to prove their eligibility or submit forms to remain on the rolls. The conscious and deliberate misuse of Form 7 for third party deletions, that too by dominatnpolitical actors, has been a recurring aspect of the controversial SIR process.

Widely reported investigations by The Hindu, both in Delhi and Karnataka have raised another serious question: who can or should initiate the process for deletion of voters, on what basis, and how effectively are such deletion processes being checked?

Incidentally, the obduracy within the existing Election Commission of India (ECI) –despite the reported “dissent” from two Commissioners, Vivek Joshi and Sukhbir Singh Sandhu –is evident from the September 26 “clarificatory press note” issues by the Commission. This followed the sensational and important expose by The Indian Express on September 23. Even after the storm of protests that followed, the ECI continued to “allow” as many as 50 deletions per BLA (Booth Level Agent) of political parties, which is a misnomer for motivated mass deletions!

In Delhi’s Mustafabad Assembly constituency, hundreds of Form 7 applications seeking the deletion of Muslim voters have been linked to BJP-appointed Booth Level Agents (BLAs), many of whom have reportedly denied filing or signing them. One BLA, however, claimed to have filed more than 500 such applications despite the Election Commission later imposing restrictions on the number of Form 7 applications an individual could file.

Meanwhile, in Karnataka, where SIR was also meant to identify and remove duplicate or ineligible entries, the final electoral rolls have continued to show serious errors. The Hindu found that in Mahadevapura Assembly constituency alone, 803 voter IDs were linked to just 397 people. There were also cases involving the same EPIC number appearing in two different constituencies and hundreds of instances of individuals having multiple voter IDs.

Together, the two developments raise serious questions about the claim that the SIR process is meant to ensure cleaner and more reliable electoral rolls.

What the Election Commission held on September 26

The Election Commission’s Press Note issued after its meeting on September 26, 2026 dealt directly with some of the concerns arising during the ongoing SIR process.

The September 26 Press Note does not alter or restrict the existing role of Booth Level Agents (BLAs) in relation to objections or applications for deletion through Form 7. Its directions primarily concern the handling of notices issued during the SIR and the facilitation of inclusion of persons whose names were left out. The Press Note does not address the powers or role of BLAs in filing or pursuing Form 7 objections against entries in the electoral roll, leaving that underlying process unaffected.

ECI caps individual Form 7 applications

In October, the ECI capped the number of Form 7 applications that an individual elector can file at 10 during the claims and objections period and five per month during continuous updation of electoral rolls. The Commission said bulk objections filed on unsubstantiated grounds could inconvenience the elector whose name is challenged and increase the workload of field-level officials. The limits apply to both online and physical submissions, while recognised political parties’ BLAs remain governed by separately prescribed limits.

Form 7: the route through which names can be challenged

Form 7 is used to seek the deletion of an existing elector’s name from the electoral roll or to object to the inclusion of a name.

During the continuing SIR process in Delhi, The Hindu reported that 1,021 deletion applications had been filed in Mustafabad. Of these, 787 applications — or about 77% of the total — named 20 BJP-appointed BLAs as the objectors.

All 787 applications were directed against Muslim electors.

The scale becomes even more significant when third-party applications alone are considered. According to the publicly available list of Form 7 applications on the Delhi Chief Electoral Officer’s website, 787 of the 837 deletion applications filed by third parties — around 94% — were linked to these 20 BJP BLAs. But when contacted by The Hindu, 16 of the 20 BLAs denied filing or signing the applications attributed to them. Many reportedly said they had no knowledge that forms had been submitted using their names.

The controversy is therefore not merely about whether deletion applications should ultimately succeed. It raises a prior and fundamental question: who actually filed the applications seeking the removal of these voters?

Applications allegedly filed in other people’s names

One of the BLAs named as an objector in 32 Form 7 applications, Ankit Yadav, reportedly denied filing any of them. According to The Hindu’s report, he said he discovered that his details had allegedly been used to seek the deletion of Muslim voters living in his own neighbourhood. He subsequently submitted a complaint and formally resigned as a BLA to party representatives.

The newspaper reported that, with the assistance of the local Booth Level Officer, the electors concerned were found living at their registered addresses.

The BLO also reportedly said that he had not received physical copies of the relevant Form 7 applications.

Another person, Nitin Kumar, was named as an objector in applications relating to an area which, according to him, was not even his area. He too denied filing the forms, although he had received messages relating to their verification. The report also identified several other BJP BLAs who were named as objectors in dozens of deletion applications but denied filing them. The forms reportedly cited reasons such as “absent/permanently shifted”, “already enrolled” and “death” for seeking the deletion of names. The question is therefore not simply whether a voter ultimately remains on or is removed from the roll. The controversy concerns the ability of applications for deletion to enter the official system in the first place, including allegations that individuals’ names and details may have been used without their knowledge.

One BLA says he filed ‘over 500’ applications

Among the 20 BLAs named in the applications, one person stood apart.

BJP BLA Robin Singh Dhama, named as an objector in 57 cases in the publicly available records cited by The Hindu, acknowledged filing Form 7 applications and claimed that he had submitted “500 of those”. His claim became particularly significant because the Election Commission had introduced restrictions on the number of Form 7 applications that could be filed by an individual elector.

On October 9, 2026, the ECI imposed a cap of 10 Form 7 applications from an individual elector during the entire claims and objections period.

BLAs are permitted to submit applications in bulk under a separate procedure, but this involves applications filled by other electors and submitted along with the prescribed undertaking.

Senior ECI officials had earlier told The Hindu that a BLA filing Form 7 applications in his own name as an objector, without the prescribed undertaking for bulk submissions, would be covered by the restriction. The newspaper further reported that the forms naming the 20 BLAs as objectors had been filed without the prescribed BLA undertaking or the prescribed format for such submissions.

The Delhi District Election Officer, the Chief Electoral Officer and the ECI did not respond to questions from The Hindu, according to the report. Earlier, the District Election Officer had stated that deletion claims would be physically verified by the BLO and the ERO or Assistant ERO, and that action would be taken against applications found to be false or “mischievous”.

What September 26 did not change

The September 26 order laid down procedures for voters who had received notices during SIR because they were “unmapped” or had “logical discrepancies”, and for those left out of the rolls. It provided for BLO visits, collection and uploading of documents, and routes for inclusion through continuous updation and a special enrolment drive.

However, it did not remove the wider statutory and administrative process through which objections to existing voters can be raised and deletion proceedings initiated. The Mustafabad controversy demonstrates why this remains significant: where hundreds of deletion applications are generated and persons named as objectors deny filing them, serious questions arise about the integrity, traceability and safeguards of the deletion mechanism.

SIR removes voters, yet duplicate entries remain

The developments in Delhi come alongside findings from Karnataka that raise a different question about the effectiveness of SIR. In Mahadevapura Assembly constituency, The Hindu found that 803 voter IDs were linked to just 397 people after the exercise, including cases of individuals having multiple voter IDs and the same EPIC number appearing in different constituencies.

The report also identified more than 500 cases of persons having multiple voter IDs within polling stations and around 300 cases across different polling stations. These findings are significant because SIR has been justified as a means of removing duplicate and ineligible entries and improving the accuracy of electoral rolls. Yet serious duplication and inconsistencies reportedly remained even after the process.

The problem is not only duplication — it is exclusion

These developments point to a larger contradiction. In Delhi, hundreds of voters could simultaneously become the subject of deletion proceedings, while in Karnataka, an intensive revision intended to improve accuracy still left substantial duplication and other errors in the rolls.

The issue, therefore, cannot be addressed only by providing procedures after voters receive notices or are left out of the rolls. A system that subjects existing voters to large-scale scrutiny and potential deletion must also demonstrate that it can prevent erroneous exclusion and ensure accuracy. Once a genuine voter is deleted, the burden of discovering the deletion and seeking restoration can fall on the voter.

Why the demands from the Online Assembly remain relevant

The continuing controversies surrounding SIR, Form 7 applications and errors in revised electoral rolls reinforce the demands adopted in the resolution of the Online Assembly.

The concerns raised across States show that the issues with SIR are not isolated errors but raise wider questions about scrutiny, exclusion and verification. The demand to scrap SIR therefore remains central.

The resolution also calls for institutional accountability, including disbanding the present Election Commission and repealing the 2023 law governing the appointment of Election Commissioners, to protect the independence and credibility of the electoral process.

Finally, it calls for reverting to the 2024 electoral rolls while ensuring the inclusion of all genuinely eligible new voters through a public audit process as is mandated. Electoral revision should expand participation and facilitate inclusion—not place existing voters at risk of exclusion or make the process of restoring their names unnecessarily difficult.

Related:

Public Hearing on Sewer Workers – Hearing the victims and their families

Does the ECI’s Nov 6 communication signal a step-back on re-enrolment in the ASSD list?

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]]> Supreme Court rejects ‘informal detention’, strengthens safeguards against arbitrary arrest https://sabrangindia.in/supreme-court-rejects-informal-detention-strengthens-safeguards-against-arbitrary-arrest/ Wed, 11 Nov 2026 04:46:16 +0000 https://sabrangindia.in/?p=50045 Holding that the 24-hour deadline under Article 22(2) begins with the actual curtailment of liberty, the Court says investigating agencies cannot keep individuals in custody while delaying the formal recording of arrest

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]]> The Supreme Court has held that the 24-hour period within which an arrested person must be produced before a Magistrate begins from the moment their liberty is effectively curtailed by investigating authorities, and not from the time at which their formal arrest is recorded. The Court has made clear that investigating agencies cannot keep a person under their control during search, seizure or questioning and subsequently claim that the constitutional clock began only when an arrest memo was prepared.

In Sujit Das and Others v. Union of India, a judgment delivered on November 5, 2026, a Bench of Justices Ujjal Bhuyan and Atul S. Chandurkar examined the scope of Article 22(2) of the Constitution, which requires every arrested and detained person to be produced before the nearest Magistrate within 24 hours of arrest, excluding only the time necessary for the journey from the place of arrest to the Magistrate’s court.

The judgment is significant not only for clarifying when this constitutional deadline begins, but also for reinforcing the role of judicial oversight in preventing arbitrary detention and custodial abuse. It rejects the creation of an intermediate category of detention in which a person is deprived of their liberty but is not treated as arrested for the purpose of constitutional protection. The Court has also clarified that compliance with the 24-hour ceiling does not, by itself, make detention lawful: the period of detention must also be reasonable in the circumstances.

“the magistrate shall also examine at the time of production whether the detention of the person produced, though is within the time frame of 24 hours, has exceeded the period which can be construed to be reasonable in the circumstances of the case. If he is satisfied that detention in custody has been for a longer period than what is reasonable, he may decline remand” (Para 69 (vii))

The case: Detained on September 29, formally arrested the following day

The case arose from an NDPS investigation in Tripura. On September 29, 2025, officers of the Customs Division intercepted a truck travelling towards Agartala on the basis of information that it was carrying narcotic substances concealed in a consignment of ginger. The persons travelling in the vehicle were intercepted at approximately 2 pm at Shanitala Noabadi.

The search resulted in the recovery of narcotic substances. It continued at the Customs Division office in Agartala, where further contraband was recovered from trolley bags concealed beneath the ginger consignment. The total quantity seized was 60.79 kg. The search and seizure procedure was completed at approximately 5 pm on September 29.

However, the appellants were formally shown as arrested only on September 30, at 11 am and 11.15 am. They were produced before a Judicial Magistrate at 4.45 pm that day and remanded to judicial custody.

Their bail applications were rejected by the Special Judge and subsequently by the Tripura High Court. The High Court relied, among other considerations, on Section 37 of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985, which imposes stringent conditions for granting bail in specified NDPS cases.

Before the Supreme Court, the appellants raised a separate and fundamental constitutional objection. They argued that their liberty had been curtailed when they were intercepted and brought under the control of the investigating team at 2 pm on September 29. If that was the point from which the 24-hour period began, they should have been produced before a Magistrate by 2 pm on September 30. Their production at 4.45 pm was therefore beyond the constitutionally permitted period.

The investigating agency disputed this interpretation. It maintained that the appellants had merely been intercepted on September 29 and were not detained until their formal arrests the following morning. It argued that the intervening period was required to complete the procedures prescribed under the NDPS Act, including search and seizure, weighing and testing the seized substances, preparing seizure documents and carrying out other investigative formalities.

The agency also relied on Rule 3(4) of the NDPS (Seizure, Storage, Sampling and Disposal) Rules, 2022, which prescribes procedures for the classification, weighing, packaging and numbering of seized substances in the presence of witnesses and the person from whose possession they were recovered.

The Supreme Court directed the investigating officer to explain the period between the interception, completion of the search and seizure, formal arrest and production before the Magistrate. The central question was whether the investigating agency could treat the period during which the appellants were under its control as something other than detention for the purposes of Article 22(2).

The constitutional meaning of arrest cannot depend on the investigating agency’s paperwork

The Court approached the question by examining the language and purpose of Article 22(2). It noted that the provision refers to a person who is “arrested and detained in custody”. The expressions are used conjunctively, and the Court rejected the attempt to treat them as two separate events so that the constitutional deadline could be postponed until formal arrest.

It held that the Constitution does not recognise detention dehors arrest. In other words, a person cannot be deprived of their liberty and kept under the control of investigating authorities while being placed in a legally indeterminate category of detention that falls outside the protection of Article 22(2).

“ Any attempt to draw an artificial distinction between ‘arrest’ and ‘detention’ would dilute or negate the fundamental protection guaranteed by the Constitution under clause (2) of Article 22. Such an endeavour should be avoided. We must adopt that interpretation which enhances and furthers the constitutional objective.” (Para 58)

The Court explained that the relevant consideration is whether the person has been deprived of their personal liberty and is no longer free to leave. It referred to its earlier decisions, including Niranjan Singh v. Prabhakar Rajaram Kharote and Directorate of Enforcement v. Deepak Mahajan, to examine the meaning of arrest and custody. These decisions recognise that the question of custody depends on the actual restraint imposed on an individual, rather than merely the terminology used by the authorities.

Applying this understanding, the Court held that the 24-hour period begins when a person is taken under the control of an investigating authority and their liberty is effectively curtailed. The formal arrest memo cannot determine the commencement of the constitutional deadline.

The Court also rejected the proposition that statutory procedures under the NDPS Act could justify a period of detention outside Article 22(2). It acknowledged the requirements governing search and seizure but held that these procedures cannot be used to postpone constitutional safeguards. Once a person’s liberty has been curtailed, the time spent on investigative or administrative procedures cannot be excluded from the 24-hour calculation. The only period that can be excluded is the time necessary for the journey from the place of arrest to the Magistrate’s court, as expressly provided under Article 22(2).

“Article 22(2) does not sanction exclusion of the time taken for enquiry and investigation before the arresting authority could effect arrest of the detainee. This is beyond the mandate of Article 22(2) of the Constitution. Article 22(2) does not sanction creation of any buffer zone where the liberty of an individual is curtailed for investigating purposes but not formally shown as arrested. Creation or contemplation of such buffer zone is unconstitutional.” (Para 43)

In reaching this conclusion, the Bench disapproved the approach adopted by the Orissa High Court in Aryaman Pattnayak, the Madras High Court in Kannan and the Kerala High Court in Arun K. Thomas. These decisions had drawn a distinction between detention during investigation and formal arrest. The Supreme Court held that the interpretation adopted by the High Courts was inconsistent with the constitutional protection of personal liberty.

The judgment is therefore an important clarification for investigations conducted under special statutes. It establishes that the existence of statutory powers to search, seize or question a person does not create an exception to the constitutional requirement of timely production before a Magistrate.

“Therefore, the declaration that the period of 24 hours for the purposes of Article 22(2) commences from the completion of such search and seizure and only from the time of arrest recorded by the arresting authority is not only unsustainable in law but is entirely unconstitutional.” (Para 43)

The 24-hour limit is not an automatic licence to detain

A further important aspect of the judgment concerns Section 58 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, which corresponds to Section 57 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973. The Court identified two distinct safeguards under Section 58. First, a person cannot be detained by the police without a warrant for more than 24 hours, excluding the necessary journey time, without being produced before a Magistrate. Second, even within that period, detention must not exceed what is reasonable in the circumstances of the case.

The second requirement is particularly significant. The Court clarified that the 24-hour period should not be understood as an automatic entitlement for investigating agencies to detain a person for the entire duration. A person may be produced before a Magistrate within 24 hours and yet have been detained for longer than was reasonable.

In such circumstances, the Magistrate is not required to authorise further detention merely because the outer time limit has not been breached. The Magistrate must independently examine the circumstances and may decline to authorise remand if the detention was unreasonable.

“Therefore, Section 57 CrPC (58 BNSS) mandates two limitations: firstly, the constitutional limitation of 24 hours; and secondly, within that 24 hours, the detention should not exceed what is considered to be a reasonable period in the facts of that case. This additional but salutary limitation should be borne in mind not only by the detaining authorities but also by the magistrates considering remand. In a given case, even though technically there may not be any breach of the 24 hours timeline, yet if the magistrate is satisfied that detention was for a period longer than what was reasonable, he or she may decline remand.” (Para 60)

The Court also placed a specific responsibility on Magistrates to ascertain and record the actual date and time at which the person’s liberty was curtailed. They cannot mechanically rely on the time of formal arrest recorded by the investigating agency. They must examine when the person was actually brought under official control, calculate the 24-hour period from that point and assess whether the detention was reasonable.

This direction strengthens the remand process as a substantive safeguard against arbitrary detention, rather than allowing it to become a procedural exercise in which the investigating agency’s account is accepted without scrutiny.

Connecting delayed formal arrest with the risk of custodial violence

The Court’s reasoning is rooted in the wider constitutional concern surrounding custodial violence and the abuse of investigative powers. It referred to earlier decisions, including Khatri v. State of Bihar, D.K. Basu v. State of West Bengal and Paramvir Singh Saini v. Baljeet Singh, to underline the importance of timely judicial oversight and safeguards against custodial abuse.

The Court recognised that the period between the actual deprivation of liberty and the formal recording of arrest can be particularly vulnerable to misuse. If investigating agencies are permitted to postpone the formal recording of arrest, individuals may remain under their control without the immediate protection that Article 22(2) is intended to provide. The judgment thus treats the 24-hour requirement as more than a procedural deadline. It is a constitutional mechanism intended to ensure that executive power over an individual’s liberty is brought under judicial scrutiny at the earliest opportunity.

This is particularly relevant in the Indian context, where allegations of custodial violence, coercive interrogation and unlawful detention have repeatedly raised concerns about the exercise of police and investigative powers. The ruling strengthens the legal basis for challenging practices in which a person’s actual detention is obscured by the terminology of questioning, enquiry or investigative custody.

Article 21 cannot be lightly subordinated to restrictive provisions under special laws

The judgment also contains important observations on the relationship between fundamental rights under Article 21 and the restrictive bail conditions under Section 37 of the NDPS Act. The Tripura High Court had relied on the Supreme Court’s decision in State of Punjab v. Sukhwinder Singh @ Gora (2026), which considered the relationship between the right to speedy trial and the restrictions imposed by Section 37. In that case, the Supreme Court had set aside a grant of bail where the High Court had not recorded satisfaction regarding the statutory twin conditions.

In Sujit Das, the Bench expressed reservations about the observations in Sukhwinder Singh suggesting that the right to speedy trial under Article 21 must be exercised within the framework of Section 37 and cannot, solely on the ground of delay, override that provision.

The Court reiterated that Article 21 protects fundamental rights that lie at the core of constitutional jurisprudence and cannot be lightly restricted, even under special statutes. It referred to decisions including Union of India v. K.A. Najeeb, Satender Kumar Antil v. CBI, Mohd. Muslim v. State (NCT of Delhi) and Ankur Chadha v. State of Madhya Pradesh, among others, to support the proposition that violations of Article 21 may require the rigours of Section 37 or comparable statutory restrictions to give way.

The Bench noted that it could be argued that the relevant observations in Sukhwinder Singh were per incuriam in view of the three-Judge Bench decision in K.A. Najeeb. However, it expressly refrained from making a final pronouncement because Sukhwinder Singh was also a decision of a coordinate Bench. It further clarified that Article 22(2) had not been an issue before the Bench in that case.

“We have our reservation on the aforesaid observations made by the Bench. First and foremost, the rights conferred by Article 21 of the Constitution of India are not only constitutional rights. These are fundamental rights. Right to life and liberty as enshrined in Article 21 are at the core of our constitutional jurisprudence. These fundamental rights cannot be tinkered with so lightly, not even under the special statutes.” (Para 49)

These observations are important for future litigation concerning prolonged pre-trial detention and restrictive bail provisions. However, they should not be read as overruling Sukhwinder Singh or as finally settling the relationship between Article 21 and Section 37. The Court’s binding ruling in Sujit Das concerns the commencement of the 24-hour period under Article 22(2), the reasonableness of detention under Section 58 BNSS and the responsibility of Magistrates to scrutinise the actual period of custody.

A significant safeguard, but its enforcement will depend on judicial scrutiny

The human rights significance of the judgment lies in its recognition that constitutional protection must follow the actual experience of deprivation of liberty. A person cannot be kept under the control of the state while the state decides when to formally acknowledge that person’s arrest.

This approach is important for people detained during investigations under special legislation, where extensive powers of search, seizure and interrogation can create situations in which the distinction between questioning and custody becomes contested. By focusing on the actual restriction of liberty, the Court has provided a basis for challenging informal detention and attempts to delay judicial oversight.

The ruling also strengthens the role of Magistrates. Its insistence that they record the actual time of detention and independently assess reasonableness can help prevent routine remand orders from legitimising detention that has already violated constitutional or statutory safeguards.

At the same time, the judgment’s practical impact will depend on how these requirements are implemented. Determining the exact moment at which liberty was curtailed may involve factual disputes. Investigating agencies may contend that a person was merely asked to cooperate, was present voluntarily or was not prevented from leaving. The Court’s test will therefore require Magistrates to examine the surrounding circumstances rather than rely on labels or formal records.

Similarly, the requirement that detention be reasonable within 24 hours leaves room for fact-specific judicial assessment. The judgment establishes the principle, but its effectiveness will depend on Magistrates recording reasons and scrutinising the circumstances of detention instead of treating the 24-hour limit as a routine period available to investigating agencies.

Implications for future litigation and human rights advocacy

The ruling provides an important basis for challenging unlawful detention, delayed formal arrests and remand orders that fail to account for the actual period during which an individual was under state control. In bail proceedings, particularly those arising under the NDPS Act, defence lawyers can rely on the judgment where the available facts indicate that an accused person was intercepted, restrained or otherwise prevented from leaving before the formal arrest was recorded. The relevant records may include interception and seizure documents, CCTV footage, station or office registers, statements of witnesses, interrogation records and the arrest memo itself. These can help establish the point at which liberty was effectively curtailed and whether production before the Magistrate took place within the constitutionally permitted period.

The judgment may also be relevant in habeas corpus petitions and proceedings challenging unlawful detention, particularly where investigating authorities deny that a person has been arrested despite exercising effective control over their movements. Its reasoning can be invoked to argue that constitutional safeguards cannot be postponed through the use of alternative descriptions such as questioning, enquiry or temporary investigative detention.

For Magistrates, the judgment provides a clear direction to examine the actual circumstances of detention at the remand stage. For lawyers and human rights organisations, it offers a basis to seek greater transparency in arrest records, challenge unexplained gaps between interception and formal arrest, and demand accountability where individuals are kept in custody without timely judicial scrutiny.

It may also inform advocacy for stronger institutional safeguards against custodial violence, including effective implementation of existing arrest and detention requirements, preservation of relevant records and meaningful compliance with judicial directions concerning custodial accountability.

The Supreme Court’s directions

Applying its interpretation to the facts, the Court found that the appellants’ liberty had been curtailed when they were intercepted at approximately 2 pm on September 29, 2025. They were therefore required to be produced before a Magistrate by 2 pm on September 30, excluding only the necessary journey time. Their production at 4.45 pm on September 30 meant that they had been produced 2 hours and 45 minutes beyond the constitutional deadline. The Court held that their continued detention beyond 2 pm on September 30 was illegal and unconstitutional.

The Court also found the unexplained interval of approximately 18 hours between the completion of the search and seizure at 5 pm on September 29 and the formal recording of arrest the following morning to be unreasonable under Section 58 of the BNSS.

The Supreme Court accordingly set aside the Tripura High Court’s order dated April 29, 2026. It directed that the appellants be produced before the jurisdictional Special Court within a maximum period of seven days from the date of the judgment, after which they were to be released on bail on such terms and conditions as the Special Court considered appropriate. The Court also directed that the judgment be circulated to the Directors General of Police of all States and Union Territories, the Registrars General of the High Courts and the Directors of State Judicial Academies.

The complete judgment may be read below:

 

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Bombay High Court orders ₹5 lakh compensation for man illegally arrested, slams police-developer collusion

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]]> Maharashtra SIR: Over 2 crore names left off draft rolls; report finds uneven burden across regions and groups https://sabrangindia.in/maharashtra-sir-over-2-crore-names-left-off-draft-rolls-report-finds-uneven-burden-across-regions-and-groups/ Tue, 10 Nov 2026 10:18:03 +0000 https://sabrangindia.in/?p=50036 A preliminary analysis of Maharashtra’s SIR-2026 draft roll by the Sabar Institute finds that 20.69 million names which is a significant 21.1 % of the state’s 97.9 million electors— close to one in five pre-revision electors — were missing in the draft electoral roll published on August 31, 2026; these voters were placed on the ASDD list; the report also identifies sharp geographical variations in the deletion

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]]> Maharashtra’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) has left 20,688,421 names off the SIR-2026 draft electoral roll, according to a preliminary report by the Sabar Institute, a public policy research organisation. This amounts to 21.1 per cent of the state’s 97,854,049 electors on the roll before the revision — effectively one in every five voters. In sum this means that the proportionate deletions of voters in Maharashtra (21.1 per cent) is second only to Arunachal Pradesh which ultimately saw 22 % of its electorate deleted. After Maharashtra, is Karnataka with 99.3 lakh electors vanishing from the electorate which amounts to 18 per cent of the state’s voters previous to the SIR.

The report, which examines deletions across all 288 Assembly constituencies and 36 districts, also reveals that the overwhelming majority of those whose names were placed on the ASDD — absent, shifted, dead and duplicate — lists were not recorded as dead.

It also finds substantial variations between Mumbai and the rest of Maharashtra, between urban and less urban districts, and among different categories of electors. The report cautions that it is preliminary and concerns the names left off the draft roll. Some affected persons may have reapplied and could subsequently appear on the final electoral roll. It also stresses that “correlation is not causation.”

It is on the Diwali weekend that the Sabar Institute made these public on X.

“Maharashtra’s Special Intensive Revision has left 2,06,88,421 names off the draft electoral roll. That is 1 in 5 electors (21.1 per cent). We analysed every single name, across all 288 constituencies,” the institute said in a post on X. Analysing the ECI’s constituency-wise data, the report found that deaths accounted for only 16.8% of the deletions. The remaining 83% were recorded under other categories, including “untraceable/absent” (37.5%), “permanently shifted” (37.1%) and “already enrolled” (8.5%).

Most of those removed are alive

One of the report’s central findings is that deaths accounted for only 16.8 per cent of the total deletions. According to the report, 17,206,190 people — or 83 per cent of all deletions — were marked as permanently shifted, untraceable or absent, or already enrolled elsewhere.

The report notes that 46 per cent of these living voters were below the age of 40. State-wide, the largest recorded category was “untraceable / absent” at 37.5 per cent, closely followed by “permanently shifted” at 37.1 per cent. Another 8.5 per cent were marked as “already enrolled”. The report notes that death becomes the dominant recorded reason primarily among older age groups, while among voters below 40, the overwhelming majority were placed in non-death categories.

Mumbai and its satellite cities carry the heaviest losses

The report identifies Mumbai and the surrounding urban belt as the area with the highest concentration of deletions.

According to the findings, Mumbai’s 36 constituencies account for 11 per cent of Maharashtra’s electors but 17 per cent of all deletions.

The report states that Mumbai lost 34.7 per cent of its electorate, compared with 19.5 per cent elsewhere in the state.

Thane district recorded particularly high losses. The report says 35.4 per cent of its electorate was affected by non-death deletions, placing it at the top of the district-level list. Other districts with high levels of non-death deletions included Mumbai City, Mumbai Suburban, Pune, Nagpur and Palghar.

At the other end of the scale, Hingoli and Gadchiroli recorded the lowest levels of non-death deletions, at about 6.6 per cent, according to the report.

Colaba saw more deletions than votes cast in 2024

The report highlights the scale of deletions in some individual Assembly constituencies by comparing them with voting figures from the 2024 Maharashtra Assembly election. Its most striking example is Colaba, where 119,606 names were deleted, while 118,499 votes had been cast in the constituency in the 2024 election. The report describes Colaba as the only seat where deletions exceeded the total number of votes cast in 2024, with deletions amounting to 1.01 times the number of votes cast.

It further says that 22 other seats in Mumbai, Thane, Palghar and Pune recorded deletions equivalent to between 75 and 100 per cent of the votes cast in 2024.

The stakes are electoral

The report also compares non-death deletions with the winning margins in the 2024 Assembly election. It finds that non-death deletions exceeded the 2024 winning margin in 190 of Maharashtra’s 288 Assembly constituencies.

In 95 constituencies, the report says, the “untraceable / absent” category alone exceeded the winning margin. The report does not claim that these deletions changed election results. Rather, the comparison is used to show the scale of the deletions relative to the margins by which seats were won.

The report’s summary states: “In two out of three seats, more living voters were removed than the number of votes that decided the 2024 winner.”

No evidence of an alliance pattern after controls

One of the report’s political findings is that it found no statistically significant alliance pattern once other factors were taken into account. At a simple state-wide level, seats won by the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) recorded higher non-death deletions than those won by the Mahayuti. However, the report says this difference was substantially linked to the geographical concentration of MVA seats in Mumbai.

Outside Mumbai, the pattern changed. After controlling for Mumbai, region, reservation status, urbanisation and electorate size, the report found that the difference between MVA-held and Mahayuti-held seats was −0.27 percentage points, with a p-value of 0.82.

The report therefore concludes: “No alliance pattern survives Mumbai and urbanisation.”

Where turnout was lower, deletions were higher

The report identifies low voter turnout in the 2024 Assembly election as the strongest predictor of higher non-death deletions. It reports a Spearman correlation of −0.81 state-wide, and −0.74 outside Mumbai According to the report, constituencies in the lowest fifth of turnout recorded 34.9 per cent non-death deletions, while those in the highest fifth recorded 7.7 per cent.

The report says each percentage point of lower turnout was associated with 0.83 percentage points more non-death deletions. It interprets this relationship as being consistent with the possibility of stale electoral rolls, while presenting it as an association rather than proof of causation.

Two young women marked ‘shifted’ for every young man outside Mumbai

The report identifies a significant gender pattern among young voters marked as “permanently shifted”. Outside Mumbai, among electors aged 18 to 29, 822,798 women and 379,991 men were recorded as permanently shifted.

This amounts to approximately 2.2 women for every man. The report says this pattern is consistent with women moving to their husband’s residence after marriage and subsequently needing to enrol at a new address. Mumbai showed a different pattern, with young male deletions exceeding young female deletions. The report says this is consistent with the role of migration and male migrant workers in the city.

Overall, however, women and men were deleted at nearly identical rates — 21.4 per cent of women and 21.2 per cent of men on the 2024 roll. The difference became more visible after deaths were excluded. Outside Mumbai, 51.2 per cent of living voters removed were women, compared with 43.4 per cent in Mumbai.

More than half of third-gender electors were deleted

The report identifies third-gender electors as the group with the highest deletion rate.

According to its findings, 3,250 of Maharashtra’s 6,101 third-gender electors on the 2024 roll were placed on the ASD list. This represents 53.3 per cent of the third-gender electorate — more than two and a half times the overall state deletion rate of 21.1 per cent. The report says that 54.9 per cent of third-gender deletions were recorded as “untraceable / absent”, compared with 37.5 per cent among women and men.

Only 3.7 per cent of third-gender deletions were recorded as deaths. The report also notes that 75 per cent of the third-gender electors removed were below the age of 40. At the constituency level, it records particularly high deletion shares in several seats. In Bhiwandi West, 151 of 158 third-gender electors were deleted, while in Malad West, 313 of 345 were removed, according to the report.

Muslim-named electors account for 14.6% of deletions

The report estimates religious patterns through a name-based classification system, and explicitly states that this is a statistical estimate rather than an Election Commission record of an elector’s religion. According to this classification, 3,020,173 Muslim-named electors accounted for 14.6 per cent of all deletions.

The report compares this with a Census 2011 expectation of approximately 12.1 per cent, while also noting that the composition of deletions varies substantially across districts. The report says the Muslim-named share of deletions was 21.3 per cent in Mumbai and 13.2 per cent elsewhere.

It also emphasises the limits of name-based classification and says that its classifier was re-tested specifically on Maharashtra names.

Already enrolled” gap remains after comparing voters of the same age and seat

The report finds a difference in the recorded reasons for deletion when comparing Muslim-named electors with other electors. According to the findings, 12.3 per cent of Muslim-named deletions were marked “already enrolled”, compared with 7.9 per cent of other deletions.

Because deaths are more common among older populations, the report says it conducted comparisons between people of the same age group and in the same constituency.

After this adjustment, it found that the odds of a Muslim-named elector being recorded as “already enrolled” rather than dead were 2.07 times those of other electors of the same age in the same seat. For the “untraceable / absent” category, the corresponding odds ratio was 1.40, while the odds ratio for “permanently shifted” was 1.13.

However, the report expressly cautions against treating these findings as proof that any group was deliberately targeted.

It states: “None of this proves that any group was targeted. It shows where an audit of individual duplicate deletions would be best placed.”

Urbanisation, rather than community composition, explains much of the district pattern

At the district level, the report says that urbanisation is the strongest factor associated with higher levels of non-death deletions.

Outside Mumbai, it finds that districts with a larger urban population tended to have substantially higher deletion rates.

The report says that the relationship between urbanisation and non-death deletions was stronger than the relationship with the district’s Scheduled Caste, Muslim or Buddhist population shares. It cautions that these are area-level associations and should not be used to infer that individual members of a particular community were necessarily more or less likely to be deleted.

The report’s conclusion on this issue is that “urbanisation, not community share, drives the district pattern.”

The report’s broader warning: consequences may extend beyond voting

In its conclusion, the Sabar Institute says the implications of electoral-roll exclusion may extend beyond the right to vote.

The report notes that electoral-roll status can become connected with access to documentation and government services. It refers to difficulties involving passport renewal, the Public Distribution System, domicile and residence certificates, education, land transactions and vehicle registration.

It says prolonged uncertainty over electoral status can also create financial stress, psychological distress and disruption to family life. The report further raises concerns about delays in adjudication and appeals, arguing that a formal right to appeal may have limited value where people cannot easily obtain legal assistance, understand procedures, secure documents or afford repeated visits to administrative offices.

It identifies migrant workers, women changing residence after marriage, students, elderly persons, persons with disabilities, third-gender electors and people without continuous documentary records as groups that may face greater difficulty in documentation-heavy verification systems.

Demand for transparency, review and a countrywide study

The report calls for greater transparency around the use of algorithms, automated tools and logical discrepancy filters, saying these require independent examination and meaningful human review.

It also calls for sustained media coverage, civil society engagement and greater democratic oversight, including discussion in Parliament. Finally, the report says an independent countrywide study of the SIR is urgently required. Such a study, it says, should examine deletions and restorations, appeals and adjudication delays, demographic and regional patterns, documentary requirements, the use of algorithms and the social and economic consequences of exclusion.

Its concluding position is that maintaining accurate electoral rolls is necessary, but that “accuracy must be accompanied by transparency, accountability, accessible appeals, legal aid and protection against wrongful exclusion.”

The full report can be accessed from here.

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SIR: ECI “removes Form 6 declaration” but serious questions on legality of procedure remain

“It Is Not Just Numbers”: Prakash Raj on the Exclusion of 13.6 Crore Indians | SIR | Teesta Setalvad

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]]> SIR: ECI “removes Form 6 declaration” but serious questions on legality of procedure remain https://sabrangindia.in/sir-eci-removes-form-6-declaration-but-serious-questions-on-legality-of-procedure-remain/ Tue, 10 Nov 2026 07:26:00 +0000 https://sabrangindia.in/?p=50030 The Election Commission has separated the SIR declaration from the statutory Form 6 after two Election Commissioners objected to its inclusion and one called the change “unauthorised/illegal”, the issue comes as the Supreme Court is hearing the separate question of requiring deleted Delhi voters to seek inclusion again through Form 6

The post SIR: ECI “removes Form 6 declaration” but serious questions on legality of procedure remain appeared first on SabrangIndia.

]]> The Election Commission of India (ECI) has removed the Special Intensive Revision (SIR)-related declaration from within the online version of Form 6 and placed it separately. This “decision” followed a year and of sharp criticism related to the constitutionality and legality of having such a declaration in Form 6 instead of using established procedures for re-instating wrongly deleted voters (2025), the September 23 expose by The Indian Express and the aftermath: mass protests around an ill-motivated and unconstitutional SIR!

In the September 23 media disclosures, the dissent reportedly raised (in earlier months) by the two other Election Commissioners over the inclusion of the declaration in a statutory form prescribed under the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960, figured prominently.

According to a subsequent November 4, 2026 investigation by The Indian Express, Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had separately questioned the change. The online form had required applicants to answer an additional SIR-related declaration before proceeding. The declaration was placed between Sections J and K of Form 6 as an annexure.

Applicants were required to choose between three statements. They had to state whether their name appeared in the electoral roll during the last SIR held in the early 2000s, whether the name of a parent or grandparent appeared in that roll, or whether neither their name nor the name of a parent appeared. An applicant could not proceed without answering the question.

What is crucial for all Indians to understand is that, all three options —in fact the procedure itself was self-concocted by the Gyanesh Kumar-headed ECI; the original decision to include the declaration, and the now, subsequent one to ‘remove’ it are both unauthorised procedures amounting to sacrilege upon sacrilege. Form 6 is only for registration of new, first-time voters. For re-instatement of voters deleted due to intended or otherwise deletions (mass or single) by the ECI, the ECI may only exercise its powers under Rule 18 of the Electors Rules 1960 that allows for restoration of deleted names by public hearing without any application or any form being filled.

If according to the recorded objections recorded by the other two Election Commissioners, a major one was that given the fact that Form 6 is not simply an ordinary, administrative document but a statutory form prescribed under the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960, any changes to it could only happen through a legal amendment, which means going to Parliament. (It was on noting’s of May 16 and August 13 that EC, Vivek Joshi had first recorded this objection and thereafter his colleague EC Sandhu had described it as “unauthorised and illegal”, stating it should be removed. Despite these internal objections, Indian Express had reported that the additional (false) declaration continued to appear on the online version of the form during the SIR process. Only after the second media disclosure has this been separated.

The Commission changed its position more than once

The latest move is significant because it is not the first position taken by the ECI on the issue. When the controversy first came into public focus (September 2026) , the Commission defended its actions and maintained that its decisions had been taken in accordance with law. In a subsequent position—declared in the press release signed by all three Commissioners on September 26, 2026 — the Commission said that the SIR declaration would remain attached to the online Form 6 during the SIR period, while the ordinary statutory form would be used outside that period.

The position has now changed again. The ECI has separated the SIR declaration from Form 6 altogether. The Commission’s affidavit before the Supreme Court states that its Electoral Roll Division decided on October 21 that the online application should be in two parts: the statutory Form 6 and the separate SIR declaration.

According to the affidavit referred to by The Indian Express, the original reason for putting the declaration together with Form 6 was “administrative convenience.” The Commission said that combining the two would allow the applicant to generate a single OTP and a single e-signature instead of having to complete two separate digital processes.

However, the affidavit also acknowledges an important concern. It states that issues arose because the manner in which the declaration was displayed on the online system could be understood as though Form 6 itself had been amended. The affidavit further accepts that Form 6 can only be amended by the Central Government. This is the central issue in the controversy.

The question was not merely whether an additional question could be displayed on an online portal. The question was whether a statutory form prescribed under law could effectively be changed in its implementation through an additional mandatory declaration unilaterally, without a legally ensured amendment. The ECI has now removed the declaration from within Form 6. But the wider dispute over the use of the form remains.

A statutory form and the question of procedure

Form 6 has a specific legal purpose. The electoral registration system contains different forms and procedures for different situations. A person seeking inclusion as a new elector is not necessarily in the same position as a person whose name was already included in an electoral roll and was subsequently removed. This distinction has become increasingly important during the SIR process.

Large numbers of voters have raised concerns after names were excluded from draft electoral rolls. In some cases, the question has arisen whether these voters should be required to seek inclusion again by filing Form 6. The issue is not simply one of filling out an online application.

A statutory form requires a person to make particular declarations. Those declarations are based on the legal and factual position of the applicant. If a person is genuinely seeking registration for the first time, the form may be appropriate.

But if a person was already an elector, had previously appeared on the electoral roll and was subsequently deleted, the circumstances are different. The reason for deletion becomes relevant. The procedure through which restoration is sought also becomes relevant.

The controversy over Form 6 has therefore raised a wider question: when a voter is deleted from an electoral roll, should the person automatically be required to start again as a new applicant, or should there be a clear and lawful procedure to examine the deletion and restore the name where the exclusion was wrongful? No. The Electoral Rolls 1960 provide a route, the question is why is this method not being followed? For re-instatement of voters deleted due to intended or otherwise deletions (mass or single) by the ECI, the ECI may only exercise its powers under Rule 18 of the Electors Rules 1960 that allows for restoration of deleted names by public hearing without any application or any form being filled

Bombay High Court and the problem of false declarations

A recent decision of the Bombay High Court has added another legal dimension to the debate over the use of Form 6. As reported by LiveLaw, the Court considered the position of voters who had shifted their residence.

The question was whether such voters could be required to use Form 6 or an SIR-related enumeration process requiring declarations that did not accurately reflect their actual position.

The Court distinguished between a genuinely new voter and a person who was already registered but had shifted residence. According to the LiveLaw report, the Court observed:

“Having considered the specific declarations that are to be made by a new voter in contrast to those that are required to be made by a voter who is applying for shifting of residence, it would be quite obvious that if a voter shifting residence as in the case of the present Petitioners, had filed an application in Form 6, they would not only be making a false declaration in their application for inclusion in an Electoral Roll for the first time, but would also be falsely declaring that their name was not included in any Assembly Constituency or Parliamentary Constituency in the past.”

The observation is important because it focuses on the truthfulness of the declaration itself. A voter cannot be expected to make a factually incorrect declaration merely because a particular administrative form is prescribed. As reported by LiveLaw, the Court also noted that false declarations may have consequences under Section 31 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950.

Though the Bombay High Court matter concerned voters who had shifted residence, the principle has wider relevance to the Form 6 controversy. A first-time applicant, a voter who has shifted residence, and a voter whose name was wrongly deleted are in different factual situations. The procedure must recognise these distinctions, particularly when declarations in a statutory form carry legal consequences.

Deleted voters and the Delhi SIR dispute

The issue is now before the Supreme Court in relation to Delhi’s SIR process. The ECI’s November 3 clarification allowed persons missing from the draft roll, including previously registered voters, to seek inclusion through Form 6. Petitioners argue that voters who were already enrolled should be restored rather than treated as fresh applicants.

The ECI has said that, in specified circumstances, such applicants would not face action for a false declaration. But this itself raises a question: if special protection is needed for previously registered voters using Form 6, should the same form be used for fundamentally different categories of voters at all? The issue remains connected with the Supreme Court proceedings.

What the October 3 Online Assembly resolution says

The wider concerns over SIR and electoral-roll exclusions were also addressed in a resolution adopted at the Public Online National Assembly held on October 3, 2026. This assembly called by Vote for Democracy (VFD) included over 100 experts, professionals and activists from across India.

The resolution calls for the removal or resignation of the Chief Election Commissioner, the complete scrapping of SIR and a return to the 2024 electoral rolls, with lawful revisions for additions and deletions. It also seeks the disbanding of the existing ECI, repeal of the 2023 law governing the appointment of Election Commissioners, and a new broad-based and accountable appointment process.

The resolution further demands greater transparency in electoral data and software, including public access to electoral information in machine-readable form and disclosure of source code used in systems such as ECINet and ERONet.

It also raises concerns about Forms 6 and 7, software-driven exclusions, pending appeals and the denial of effective opportunities for verification and hearing.

Public notice, verification and the right to object

One of the important parts of the October 3 resolution concerns the process of deletion from electoral rolls. The resolution calls for a public social audit of electoral rolls and for greater participation by citizens and local communities in examining exclusions. It states that every proposed deletion should be publicly disclosed. This is in line with established ECI procedures: For re-instatement of voters deleted due to intended or otherwise deletions (mass or single) by the ECI, the ECI may only exercise its powers under Rule 18 of the Electors Rules 1960 that allows for restoration of deleted names by public hearing without any application or any form being filled

A voter should have a meaningful opportunity to challenge the deletion and seek restoration where the exclusion is wrongful. The resolution also says there should be transparency about who sought the deletion, the grounds on which it was sought and what verification was carried out. Most importantly, it states:

No electoral-roll change should be affected without public notice, verification and an effective opportunity to object.

This principle is central to the present controversy.

If a voter has been wrongly deleted, the process should not simply end with an instruction that the person must submit a new form. The circumstances of the deletion must matter. The voter should have an effective opportunity to challenge the exclusion. The electoral authorities should have a procedure to examine the case and restore the name where the deletion was wrongful. The resolution also calls for documentation of wrongful deletions, pending claims and objections, Forms 6 and 7 and procedural violations across SIR-affected states.

The larger question remains

The ECI has removed the SIR declaration from within Form 6, addressing the immediate concern that the online presentation could create the impression that a statutory form had been amended. But the central question remains: should previously enrolled voters whose names have been deleted be required to seek inclusion again through Form 6?

The Bombay High Court has highlighted the difficulty of requiring voters to make declarations that do not correctly reflect their factual position. The issue is now also before the Supreme Court in relation to Delhi.

Removing the additional declaration from Form 6 may address one part of the controversy. It does not, however, settle the question of whether Form 6 is the appropriate procedure for restoring voters who were already enrolled and were subsequently deleted nor the inherently unlawful exercise being conducted presently –which is the Special Intensive Revision (SIR).


Related:

“It Is Not Just Numbers”: Prakash Raj on the Exclusion of 13.6 Crore Indians | SIR | Teesta Setalvad

Does the ECI’s Nov 6 communication signal a step-back on re-enrolment in the ASSD list?

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]]> UP & Bihar: Tranches of arms & explosives recovered over the Diwali weekend https://sabrangindia.in/up-bihar-tranches-of-arms-explosives-recovered-over-the-diwali-weekend/ Mon, 09 Nov 2026 11:56:20 +0000 https://sabrangindia.in/?p=50026 The seizure of 19,250 live cartridges from Koilawar police thane near the Kulhadiya Toll Plaza, Bihar over the weekend (Lokmat News, November 5) was connected to another serious incident wherein the Haryana STF seized 25,000 cartridges from two cars being smuggled to UP and Bihar (Hindustan Times, November 3) and even arrested five UP residents. […]

The post UP & Bihar: Tranches of arms & explosives recovered over the Diwali weekend appeared first on SabrangIndia.

]]> The seizure of 19,250 live cartridges from Koilawar police thane near the Kulhadiya Toll Plaza, Bihar over the weekend (Lokmat News, November 5) was connected to another serious incident wherein the Haryana STF seized 25,000 cartridges from two cars being smuggled to UP and Bihar (Hindustan Times, November 3) and even arrested five UP residents. In a third incident, ironically over the Diwali weekend, also involving explosives, had the UP Police arresting two men and seizing nearly 199 kg of gelatin explosives, 100 fuses, seven bundles of red wire and 2.945 kg of powder from a fleeing Bolero vehicle in Chitrakoot district (Reports in Dainik Bhaskar and Amar Ujala, November 5). 

The seizure of 19,250 live cartridges from Koilawar police thane near the Kulhadiya Toll Plaza has drawn strong political reactions with Tejasvi Yadav, leader of the opposition raising serious questions over the accused’s alleged involvement with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). The Lokmat News reported this seizure even as the incident erupted into a political controversy with questions on motives behind the possession and transportation of thousands and thousands of such live cartridges and dangerous explosives over the Diwali weekend arose.

So far, nothing in the publicly disclosed official accounts reveal any such clear organisational link.

In fact, it is on November 2, when a joint task force of the Bihar STF and the Bhojpur District police apprehended and stopped an SUV at the Toll Plaza, and on searching it unearthed these 19,250 live cartridges and one “desi” pistol. Three persons have been arrested in this connection, and they reportedly hail from Muzaffarpur: Laltu Kumar (38), Saras Kumar (27) and Chandan Tiwari (26) from Siwan and are part of an international arms ammunition network. Sections of the BNSS and Arms act have been added in the charges against them. The connection or alleged connection with the RSS surfaced later, according to Lokmat News, their older photographs in the RSS’ uniform started circulating. It is through this seizure and investigation that 25,000 live cartridge seizure by the Haryana STF near Jhajjar was unearthed.

Meanwhile, a team of Haryana police special task force (STF) seized a consignment of 25000 live cartridges that was being smuggled to Uttar Pradesh and Bihar and arrested five suspects from two cars near Rohad toll plaza on Bahadurgarh-Rohtak highway in Jhajjar on Tuesday. The arrested suspects were Afifuddin alias Munna Khan, 49, Asim Rais, 33, Sablu Khan, 32, Arbaz Ali, 27 and Zeenat, 33. All five are residents of different localities in Uttar Pradesh’s Budaun. Eight mobile phones and two cars were also seized from them, STF officials said.

In the third weekend incident involving seizure of explosives, Uttar Pradesh Police have arrested two men and seized nearly 199 kg of gelatin explosives, 100 fuses, seven bundles of red wire and 2.945 kg of powder from a fleeing Bolero vehicle in Chitrakoot district, according reports in Dainik Bhaskar and Amar Ujala published on November 5. News reports published over the weekend and today, Monday November 9 have reported that a leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and his close associate have been arrested in Uttar Pradesh’s Chitrakoot district after local police allegedly recovered nearly 200 kg of explosive material from their vehicle near the Madhya Pradesh border. The arrest has resulted in a storm within political circles; however, predictably, the BJP itself has so far maintained a stony silence over the incident. Hari Gopal Mishra is the BJP leader who was arrested while his associate is Pappu Tiwari. Both men are residents of Bhouri village under the Raipura police station area of Chitrakoot.

The reported political background of Hari Gopal Mishra has drawn attention following the seizure. According to Amar Ujala, he had contested a Zila Panchayat election with BJP backing.

In the highway seizure in Jajjhar, Haryana authorities have revealed to the media that Munna owns an ancestral Badaun Gun House in the Civil Lines area of Badaun and had procured the consignment from Vijay Goel, who runs Mehak Gun House in Sirsa, Haryana, which he has been running since 1999.  The Haryana STF said Vijay has also been arrested and was quizzed to ascertain his role in the interstate smuggling network, which is suspected to be running for the last three years.

Waseem Akram, superintendent of police, Haryana STF, said that 24400 cartridges of 7.65mm (.32 bore) used in regular small handguns and .315 bore used in rifles were seized from a Tata Harrier, while another batch of 600 cartridges (.315 bore) were seized from a Hyundai Aura.

“The 7.65mm cartridges are used in illegal country-made pistols manufactured in Bihar’s Munger, West Bengal and Eastern UP, while the rifle bore cartridges are used in breach-load illegal pistols manufactured in these areas for which the smuggling was taking place,” Akram said.

Akram said Munna was the kingpin of the smuggling racket running due to continuous cartridge stock pilferage from the gun houses in Haryana, UP and other places. Shamsher Dahiya, deputy superintendent of police, STF, said the entire consignment was manufactured in an ammunition factory in Pune’s Khadki, as the marking ‘KF’ was engraved on all the cartridges. “The two cars were intercepted near a roadside eatery, Triveni Dhaba, which is located right opposite the toll plaza after we had received a tip-off from Bihar police STF,” he added. Some controversy has erupted over a photograph showing the accused posing in uniforms of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).

Photographs showing Bihar-based accused Chandan Tiwari and his brother Abhishek Tiwari wearing the uniform of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) were reported in a section of the digital media. Another image reportedly showing them posing with a local MLA from Muzaffarpur has also surfaced. The photographs have prompted questions about the alleged political and organisational associations of the accused. However, the images alone do not establish that the RSS, as an organisation, was involved in the arms smuggling network.

Questions over Ammunition manufactured in government factories

Another aspect of the investigation concerns reports that some of the seized cartridges were manufactured in government-owned ordnance factories. If confirmed, the reported origin of the ammunition raises questions about how it entered the alleged illegal supply chain and whether it was diverted through licensed dealers or other intermediaries.

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has reportedly joined the investigation. It is expected to examine the origin of the ammunition, the supply chain and the possible involvement of other individuals. According to media reports, the investigation has also brought renewed attention to the name of Jalan Shop, which reportedly surfaced in an earlier arms smuggling case in Bihar. Reports in that case alleged that an individual associated with the shop supplied nearly 100 pistols to different parts of Bihar using forged arms licences. The accused was reportedly wanted by the NIA and remains absconding.

Investigators have yet to establish whether the current ammunition network has any connection with that case or other previously investigated arms trafficking operations. The agencies are now attempting to trace the intended recipients of the seized cartridges and identify the ultimate buyers. They are also examining whether the ammunition was meant for organised criminal groups or other illegal networks.

Explosives seized in Chitrakoot

There are differing accounts regarding the intended use of the seized materials from the third incident.

According to reports, the accused told investigators that the explosives were being transported from Majhgawan in Madhya Pradesh for digging a well in a rocky area. Police reportedly said the materials were of the type used for breaking rocks in stone quarries.

However, another Amar Ujala report stated that the accused had told police that the materials were intended for making firecrackers. Investigators are examining the source, destination and intended use of the explosives. Police have registered a case against the two accused under Sections 4 and 5 of the Explosive Substances Act, 1908. The Bolero used to transport the materials has also been seized.  Following the recovery, police took both men into custody and informed Chitrakoot Superintendent of Police Arun Kumar Singh, who subsequently reached the spot. The accused, along with the seized explosives, were taken to the police station for questioning. Both men were produced before a court and sent to judicial custody.

Investigators are examining the supply chain, the source of the explosives in Madhya Pradesh, their intended recipients and whether other individuals were involved in the transportation or distribution of the materials.

It was while the police from the Markundi police station were conducting a routine checking operation in their jurisdiction on the night of November 3 when they spotted a Bolero approaching. However, suspiciously, when the police signalled the Bolero vehicle to stop, its occupants allegedly attempted to flee. Thereafter, the police intercepted the vehicle after cordoning off the area.

When police personnel asked the two occupants to step out and allow the vehicle to be searched, Mishra reportedly identified himself as a BJP leader and attempted to use his political influence to avoid the search. However, the police proceeded with the inspection and recovered a large quantity of explosive material from the vehicle.

The seized material included 199 kg of gelatin sticks, 100 red-coloured fuses, seven bundles of red wire and 2.945 kg of explosive powder. It was on November 4, Superintendent of Police Arun Kumar Singh held a press conference and presented the two arrested men before journalists, as reported by Dainik Bhaskar and Amar Ujala.

The SP confirmed that Hari Gopal Mishra was associated with the BJP and had contested the Zila Panchayat member election on the party’s ticket. He had also served as a Zila Panchayat member. The second accused, Pappu Tiwari, was identified as his associate.

According to the SP, the two men were apprehended near the Uttar Pradesh–Madhya Pradesh border with approximately two quintals of explosive material. The police are investigating where the explosives were procured, where they were being transported and what they were intended to be used for. Investigators are also examining whether other individuals or organised groups were involved in the case.

The police are further probing the possible purchase and sale of the explosives; the network of people associated with their supply and whether the accused possessed the mandatory licences and documents for storing and transporting such material.

The SP said that the complete details would emerge only after the investigation was concluded. He also observed that the recovery of such a large quantity of explosives raised serious concerns, as the material could potentially have been used to carry out a major incident.

BJP silent, yet to respond

The arrest of a person identified by the police as a former BJP-backed Zila Panchayat member, along with the recovery of such a huge quantity of explosives, has caused considerable embarrassment for the party. The BJP has not issued any public statement on the matter so far.

The incident has also triggered political questions about the source, illegal procurement and intended use of the explosives. However, the allegations concerning any wider political or organisational involvement remain unsubstantiated and will have to be established through the police investigation.

Related:

Seven Explosives Recovered from Temple, Possible Links with RSS Management

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]]> 20 Years Without a Union, 18 Days of Hunger Strike: Jamia Students Script a Win | Teesta Setalvad https://sabrangindia.in/20-years-without-a-union-18-days-of-hunger-strike-jamia-students-script-a-win-teesta-setalvad/ Sat, 07 Nov 2026 03:23:26 +0000 https://sabrangindia.in/?p=50020 To ensure campus democracy and an elected union, Jamia Millia Islamia’s students fought back through an 18-day hunger strike. Teesta Setalvad speaks with Ebin Basil and Mohammad Athnan about the struggle to regain their university and an elected students’ union after two decades. The conversation also confronts the stigma and demonisation Jamia and its students […]

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]]> To ensure campus democracy and an elected union, Jamia Millia Islamia’s students fought back through an 18-day hunger strike.

Teesta Setalvad speaks with Ebin Basil and Mohammad Athnan about the struggle to regain their university and an elected students’ union after two decades.

The conversation also confronts the stigma and demonisation Jamia and its students have faced, part of a right wing agenda to obliterate the institution’s emergence from India’s struggle for freedom.

The post 20 Years Without a Union, 18 Days of Hunger Strike: Jamia Students Script a Win | Teesta Setalvad appeared first on SabrangIndia.

]]> Does the ECI’s Nov 6 communication signal a step-back on re-enrolment in the ASSD list? https://sabrangindia.in/does-the-ecis-nov-6-communication-signal-a-step-back-on-re-enrolment-in-the-assd-list/ Fri, 06 Nov 2026 13:43:10 +0000 https://sabrangindia.in/?p=50016 SC petitioners Anjali Bharadwaj and Amrita Johri welcome ECI’s Nov 6 communication to seven states on facilitating inclusion of left-out voters

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]]> On October 28, 2026 in the Delhi SIR matter, the SC had observed that making deleted voters on ASDD list fill Form 6 was an ERROR. SC had said that such voters should be allowed to fill enumeration form/ Form 8 if they are marked as permanently shifted or as absent/ untraceable.

Today, November 6, the ECI has issued communication addressed to CEOs of Delhi, Maharashtra, Haryana, Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand, Telangana and Nagaland on facilitating inclusion of left out voters. 

The communication states:

– Voters who are on ASDD list as they had shifted residence, can fill enumeration form along with a statement with details of their new address. In case of homeless persons, field verification by BLO will suffice. 

– Voters who could not submit their enumeration form within the deadline and are on ASDD list can submit their enumeration form now along with a statement on why they were unable to do so earlier. 

– All those on ASDD list who will now fill enumeration form along with the applicable statement will be re-assigned their old EPIC number. All such cases will be parked for inclusion in final voter list following due verification. 

– Wide publicity must be given to all these initiatives, including through media, social media, and announcements, reaching out through WhatsApp etc. and facilitation and assistance to be provided to voters. 

Link to ECI communication of Nov. 6, 2026- https://ceodelhi.gov.in/PDFFolders/2026/Left_Out_Electors_6_11_2026.pdf 

Anjali Bhardwaj and Amrita Johri, petitioners in the Writ Petition (Civil) 1188/2026 & IA No. 317050/2026 in Anjali Bhardwaj & ANR. Vs Election Commission of India & ANR have in a public communication today stated that they welcome this development:

“We welcome this communication issued by the ECI. We believe this is an important step in addressing large scale exclusions caused during SIR. The provision to re-assign the old EPIC numbers is important as it will ensure preservation of voter’s historical record of being an existing voter. Just in Delhi, out of 47.56 lakh deleted in the first phase and put on ASDD, 31.59 lakh were marked as permanently shifted and 11.73 as absent/untraceable. The SC had observed that asking such people to fill Form 6 with its declaration of being a first time voter was an error. 

We urge the CEO of Delhi and all other states to take immediate steps to operationalise these critical directions. “

Meanwhile, yesterday, November 5, they had in a formal letter the ECI requested for an immediate investigation and legal action based on media report of forgery, identity fraud, and misuse of Form 7 in Mustafabad Constituency of Delhi

In a letter addressed to the ECI, Anjali Bharadwaj and Amrita Johri had relied on a news report published in The Hindu yesterday.

The letter states that,  

“We are writing to draw your urgent attention to a news report published by The Hindu on November 5, 2026, titled “Delhi SIR: several BJP BLAs named as ‘objectors’ deny filing Form 7s in Mustafabad area” (pasted below).

“The investigative report highlights alarming irregularities in the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter rolls in the Mustafabad constituency of Delhi. Out of 1,021 deletion applications filed, at least 787 Form 7—accounting for 94% of third-party deletion requests—were submitted in the names of 20 BJP-appointed Booth-Level Agents (BLAs). All the applications were against Muslim electors. Upon verification, The Hindu has reported that 16 of these 20 individuals denied filling, signing, or having any knowledge of these forms, indicating that their identities appear to have been forged and used fraudulently without their consent.

“The report raises serious concerns about possible systematic and fraudulent attempt to disenfranchise legitimate electors through the deliberate misuse of statutory procedures and warrants investigation.

“In light of these findings, we urge the ECI and the CEO, Delhi, to take immediate cognizance and initiate the following actions:

  1. Register police complaints: Direct the registration of FIRs under relevant provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) including for forgery, criminal impersonation, identity fraud, and submission of false declarations etc.
  2. Comprehensive audit of all Form 7 submissions: Conduct a comprehensive audit of every Form 7 submitted across all constituencies in Delhi during the SIR to verify whether the listed objectors actually authorized and signed the forms.
  3. Statutory penalties under the RP Act: After investigation, enforce strict statutory action under Section 31 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, against all persons who knowingly submitted false or fabricated declarations in Form 7.
  4. No deletions without independent verification: Immediately stay all deletion proceedings originating from third-party Form 7 applications until independent verification with the affected electors and listed objectors is completed.
  5. Publish verification reports: Release a public report disclosing the total number of Form 7 applications received, verified as genuine, or found to be fraudulent to maintain public trust in the electoral process.
  6. Publish all Form 7 submissions on the CEO Delhi website: Publish all Form 7 deletion applications received during the SIR on the website of the CEO, Delhi to enable people to check and verify whether such forms have been fraudulently submitted in their names.

The letter dated November 5 had been addressed to Gyanesh Kumar, The Chief Election Commissioner, ECI, Sukhbir Singh Sandhu, Election Commissioner, ECI, Dr. Vivek Joshi, Election Commissioner, ECI and Ashok Kumar, The Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), Delhi

The Hindu, November 5, 2026 (page 4)

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