The Supreme Court has sought responses on allegations of mass voter deletion in Maharashtra's electoral roll revision but has not yet granted any immediate relief.

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• The Supreme Court on Monday, October 26, issued notice to the Election Commission of India, the Centre, the Chief Electoral Officer and the Maharashtra government on a plea challenging the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in the state.
• The Bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana heard the plea filed by chartered accountant and journalist Arun Anandagiri.
• Senior advocate Arvind Datar, for the petitioner, said about two crore voters were removed from the draft rolls and another 1.22 crore electors were affected by "logical discrepancies".
• He said voters who had temporarily relocated during redevelopment projects in Mumbai and Pune were excluded as "persons not found".
• The petition seeks a stay on the revision and protection against deletion of voters whose names were on the pre-SIR rolls.
• The Court declined to grant immediate relief on extending the claims and objections deadline or halting publication of the final voters' list without hearing the Election Commission.
• Under the revised schedule, the draft roll was published on August 31 and the period for claims and objections was extended until October 26.
• The Court noted it had extended deadlines in SIR exercises in other states and indicated that appropriate directions could be considered after examining the circumstances.
• When the petitioner raised fears about deleted voters being asked to file Form 6, the Chief Justice assured that no one would be prosecuted.
• Datar urged the Court to direct the Election Commission to introduce a separate form for voters whose names were deleted during the exercise.
• In its judgment of May 27, the Court had held that the SIR is authorised under Article 324 of the Constitution read with Section 21(3) of the Representation of the People Act, 1950.
• That judgment also said the Commission can examine citizenship for electoral purposes, which does not amount to a final determination of citizenship.
• The matter will be heard again on November 5.