Summary
The Hindu analysed Form 7 applications on the ECI website during Karnataka's Special Intensive Revision. It found that at least 61,059 deletion objections had been filed in the names of Electoral Registration Officers and Assistant Electoral Registration Officers and none of them gave the mandatory reason.
Officials said the software auto-generated the forms under their digital signatures for voters who could not be reached at hearings. Only 192 such forms were filed before the claims-and-objections period ended on 23 September 2026.
Over 60,800 followed, peaking just before the 22 October disposal deadline. Sample checks reportedly found the voters already deleted. This raises serious questions under Rules 13 and 17 of the Registration of Electors Rules and the hearing guarantee in Section 22 of the RPA, 1950.
WHY IT MATTERS FOR UPSC & STATE PCS
An analysis of Form 7 data in Karnataka's 2026 Special Intensive Revision showed election officials as objectors in at least 61,059 deletion requests that cite no reason. The bulk were lodged after the 23 September deadline, days before the final roll's scheduled publication on 27 October 2026.
Standard News
Objector and Judge in One Signature: How Karnataka's Software Collapsed Due Process
The law gives an Electoral Registration Officer two separate roles in a roll revision. The officer may act on their own to remove dead or shifted voters under Rule 21A, but only after listing them and trying to give each a chance to show cause.
Separately, the officer adjudicates objections that others file in Form 7 under Rule 13. Karnataka's revision fused the two. When the officer's own digital signature appears as the objector on a Form 7 that the same office then decides, the objector and the judge become one.
The rule as written Three layers of law were meant to stand between a voter and a silent deletion:
- Rule 13 and Form 7. An objection must be lodged in the prescribed form and must state why the name should go.
- Rule 17. Any objection lodged after the prescribed period or not in the prescribed form and manner, must be rejected.
- Section 22 of the RPA, 1950. No elector can be struck off for being dead, non-resident or otherwise disentitled without a reasonable opportunity of being heard. Behind all three sits Article 326, which guarantees adult suffrage, so a wrongful deletion is never a mere clerical error.
The rule as practiced The data shows at least 61,059 Form 7s filed in the names of EROs and AEROs.
Not one carried a reason. Officials explained that the software had auto-generated them, under their digital signatures, for voters marked ineligible after they could not be reached at hearings on mapping or logical-discrepancy notices. By their own account, they had been instructed to use Form 7 only for voters who had shifted, were duplicates, underage, dead or non-citizens. The timing is starker still:
- Only 192 official objections were filed before the window closed on 23 September.
- More than 60,800 were reportedly filed afterwards.
- Over 10,000 a day were filed on 17, 19, 21 and 22 October, as the disposal deadline approached. In The Hindu's sample checks, every name examined had already been deleted, including those named in post-deadline applications. The fields recording hearing notices and orders were blank. Bommanahalli shows the scale at constituency level: 4,095 of its 5,757 Form 7s came from officials, not voters. In at least 26 Assembly constituencies, officials out-filed voters and third parties.
Where the
gap lies The text never imagined the machinery itself as an objector. Form 7 was designed for a citizen or a third party to challenge an entry. Rule 21A already gave officers a separate, transparent route for deletions they initiate.
Routing machine-flagged ineligibility through Form 7 borrowed the form's speed while discarding the safeguards attached to the officer's own power: a published list, a show-cause attempt and a recorded reason.
Quick Facts
Key numbers & takeaways — revise these first
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Form 7 is the form used to object to the inclusion of a name in or to seek its deletion from, the electoral roll.
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Rule 13 of the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960 prescribes the form and manner of lodging objections.
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Rule 17 requires that objections filed outside the prescribed period, form or manner be rejected.
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Rule 21A allows Electoral Registration Officers to delete names of dead or shifted electors, but requires them to make every endeavour to give the person a chance to show cause.
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Section 22 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950 bars deletion on grounds such as death, non-residence or disentitlement without a reasonable opportunity of being heard.
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ASDDO in the SIR stands for Absent, Shifted, Duplicate, Dead and Others.
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Over 1.07 crore names were removed from Karnataka's draft roll during the enumeration phase.
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Karnataka's claims-and-objections window closed on 23 September 2026.
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The disposal deadline was 22 October 2026.
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The final roll was scheduled for 27 October 2026.
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In Bommanahalli, officials filed 4,095 of the 5,757 Form 7 applications.
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The Election Commission of India derives its power to superintend electoral rolls from Article 324.
Connect the dots for your UPSC preparation.
Standard news covers the event. Log in to read our comprehensive analysis and uncover the hidden constitutional, structural, and ethical dimensions of this topic:
Why Rule 21A, not Form 7, was the lawful route for officer-initiated deletions and what was lost by switching vehicles.
How the post-deadline surge collides with Rule 17's mandatory rejection and with the rule that late objections belong in a supplementary roll.
The Bommanahalli case study: what it means when officials file over 70% of a constituency's deletion objections.
A way forward for algorithm-assisted roll revision that keeps reasons, notices and hearings on the record.
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