Form-7 misuse: Supreme Court to consider Congress MP’s plea alleging targeted deletions in U.P.

The Supreme Court has agreed to consider a plea by Congress MP Tanuj Punia highlighting widespread misuse and fraud in connection with Form 7 during the claims-and-objections phase of the Uttar Pradesh Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process.

Form-7 is a statutory mechanism under the Registration of Electors Rules of 1960, intended to enable limited and bona fide objections to the inclusion of names in the electoral roll, or deletion on narrowly defined grounds, including death or permanent shifting of residence.

Appearing before a Bench headed by the Chief Justice of India Surya Kant on August 5, senior advocates Salman Khusheed and advocate Shariq Ahmed, representing Mr. Punia, said there was documented evidence to show that the Form-7 process had been utilised to facilitate bulk, fraudulent and targeted deletion attempts against eligible electors, “particularly of those belonging to minority and marginalised sections of society”.

The MP has arraigned the Election Commission of India and the Chief Electoral Officer of Uttar Pradesh as respondents.

The Uttar Pradesh SIR process ended in April with the final voter list showing a reported increase in the electorate by 84 lakh to 13.39 crore. Mr. Khursheed and Mr. Ahmed pointed out that the issue raised in Mr. Punia’s application needed to be taken up without any further delay as the process for the State Assembly election may commence as early as in December 2026 or in early January 2027. The court has tentatively scheduled it to come up towards the end of August.

This application itself has been lying pending for nearly five months in the apex court, since February 2026, until it was taken up on August 5 for hearing.

Mr. Punia’s application said there were credible reports indicating that “numerous” Form-7 applications were generated and submitted with incomplete or false particulars of the objector, invalid identifying details, forged signatures, and, in several instances, in the names of persons who had subsequently denied filing any such objections.

It also referred to instances of Booth Level Officers (BLOs) having received pre-filled Form 7 applications seeking deletion of multiple electors, including electors who had already been verified during the SIR process.

These instances had raised “serious apprehensions regarding the integrity of the objection mechanism”, the Barabanki MP said.

The application referred specifically to one instance in which a person named ‘Yogendar’ filed objections under Form-7 against 32 electors within the same Assembly Constituency in Hata, Kushinagar district.

“The objections are repetitive, bulk in nature, and mechanically invoke identical grounds without any accompanying particulars or credible basis,” the application said.

The application further referred to a communication issued by the president of the Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee in February to the State’s Chief Electoral Officer, claiming that “approximately 700-800 Form 7 objection applications seeking deletion of voters’ names were submitted in respect of Booth Nos. 71, 72, 73 and 74 of Assembly Constituency 313 Khalilabad, Sant Kabir Nagar district, and that the names sought to be deleted were overwhelmingly those of electors belonging to the Muslim community”.

The Congress MP has sought initiation of penal action under Section 31 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, and other applicable provisions of law, against persons found to have made false declarations, filed fraudulent objections, impersonated objectors, or otherwise misused the Form-7 mechanism to procure wrongful deletions from the electoral rolls.

“This is a development with grave constitutional implications, as it strikes at the heart of the right to political participation and the guarantee of free and fair elections. In fact, it would not be an exaggeration to say that such revelations imperil our democratic structure itself,” Mr. Punia had said in his plea.