Bombay HC orders Goa to restore family names to voter roll within 10 days

The Bombay High Court has issued a directive requiring Goa's election authorities to restore the names of a north Goa family to the voter roll within ten days, after finding they were improperly omitted during a recent special revision exercise.

The Salgaonkar family, residents of the Santa Cruz constituency, approached the high court after discovering their names had been deleted from the draft electoral roll prepared as part of the systematic revision process. The family contested the exclusion, arguing they met all eligibility criteria for voter registration and had committed no wrongdoing that would warrant removal.

In its order, the high court accepted the family's grievance and directed election officials to correct the records promptly. The judgment underscores ongoing concerns about data accuracy in voter registration drives, which periodically remove names deemed ineligible or duplicate entries.

The special revision exercise, or SIR, is a periodic process undertaken by electoral authorities to update and clean voter rolls by identifying and removing ineligible entries. However, such exercises have occasionally resulted in legitimate voters being incorrectly deleted from the register, prompting legal interventions to restore their voting rights.