Panaji: The absence of a voter's name from the draft SIR roll does not mean that it has been deleted, the Election Commission of India (ECI) told the Bombay High Court here on Tuesday, as the court reserved its verdict on a writ petition filed by a Goa resident.
A Special Intensive Revision is a fresh preparation of the electoral roll and not a Special Summery Revision (SSR) where the roll is only updated, ECI lawyer Senior Advocate Ashutosh Kumbhakoni told the Goa bench of the High Court.
After the arguments concluded, the bench of Justices Valmiki Menezes and Amit Jamsandekar reserved their judgement. The petition was heard amid a raging controversy over the SIR and functioning of the ECI.
Six members of Paresh Salgaonkar's family, residents of St Cruz constituency in North Goa district, had filed the writ petition claiming that their names were deleted from the electoral roll during the SIR.
An SIR is a comprehensive, "de novo" exercise as the electoral roll must be "prepared afresh from the ground up," while a special summery revision updates an existing roll, the lawyer said.
"Absence from the draft SIR roll does not automatically amount to deletion," said Advocate Kumbhakoni.
As the roll is being prepared afresh, a name missing from the draft roll has not technically been "deleted", he said.
"The summary revision updates the existing electoral roll based on information received through the prescribed procedure while SIR rebuilds the electoral roll through an intensive process based on the enumeration exercise," Advocate Kumbhakoni stated.
"According to the submission, the petitioner had not been residing at the address shown in the pre-SIR electoral rolls for eight to ten years," the ECI lawyer said, and argued that the petitioner also did not apply to change his address, which should have been done before the SIR process began.
"In fact, my lord, this is a classical case which shows the effectiveness of SIR," Advocate Kumbhakoni said.
The judges noted that they had made it clear right from the beginning that "there is no challenge to the SIR process" itself.
Advocate Vivek Rodrigues, representing the petitioner, said that the enumeration began on November 4, 2025, after which the Booth Level Officer (BLO) visited both the old and new addresses of the petitioner on November 8, 2025.
On November 12, the petitioner contacted the BLO and requested that the enumeration form be given. But the BLO refused, as the "same must be delivered at the address recorded in the electoral roll (which was the old address)."
The petitioner later filled Form 8 to change the address. The ECI informed on December 8, 2025, that the application for change of address had been received, but when the draft roll was published on December 16, the petitioner's name was missing, the lawyer said.
The BLO told the petitioner that the Form 8 was still under process and had not been rejected.
Subsequently, on January 17, 2026, the petitioner received a letter from the ECI that his application had been forwarded to the Electoral Registration Officer (ERO). January 19 was the last date to file objections to the draft roll.
"On January 21, my application is rejected. So I am neither in the boat nor in the canoe, left in the sea," Advocate Rodrigues argued.