PANAJI: The Bombay high court Tuesday questioned ECI and the chief electoral officer’s office over deletion of the names of six members of a family from the electoral rolls in Goa’s Santa Cruz constituency during SIR even after they had submitted Form 8 to notify about the change of address.Petitioner Paresh Salgaonkar told a division bench of Justices Valmiki Menezes and Amit Jamsandekar that he and his family had submitted Form 8 during SIR after shifting their residence within the same constituency, but later found that their names had been deleted from the rolls.ECI told the court that the system did not allow Form 8 to be processed during the enumeration phase of SIR. The family was later asked to fill Form 6 for inclusion as new voters, but they refused, the commission said.The bench questioned why ECI did not consider the Form 8 applications submitted during SIR, observing that they had been filed within the stipulated time. “That’s a problem with your software. Can you imagine what will happen, how many voters you will lose out like this? How can you insist on someone filling a Form 6? Why is Form 8 there, then?” the bench asked.ECI responded that Form 8 could be filled in the ordinary course for shifting of residence, but not during the enumeration process. The petitioner and his family had shifted residence around eight years ago, and it was their responsibility to have informed the authorities about the change of address, the poll panel’s counsel argued.However, the judges were not impressed and pointed out that the petitioner had submitted Form 8 to inform the authorities about the change. “Since when has this Form 8 been in existence? Go back to pre-electronic age. How would you do it? … Now, because you have software, this issue has arisen. You can’t overwrite the software. … This is a mistake on your side,” the bench said.During the previous hearing last month, HC had asked ECI which form the petitioner needed to fill to retain his name on the rolls. ECI had said the system did not permit a name to be restored once it had been deleted. The court had then directed ECI to find a solution. “The whole country is facing this. You will have to find some way out,” it said.
