The Election Commission of India has told the Supreme Court that it is wrong to claim that deletions made during the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls cost the Trinamool Congress 31 West Bengal Assembly seats, arguing that the figures relied upon improperly club adjudicated deletions with removals of absentee, shifted, dead and duplicate voters.
New Delhi: The Election Commission of India (ECI) has disputed, before the Supreme Court, the claim of All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) Member of Parliament Derek O’Brien that deletions made during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls affected the results in 31 West Bengal Assembly constituencies that the party lost, contending that his figures wrongly clubbed together different categories of deletions [Derek O’Brien v. Election Commission of India].
In its affidavit replying to O’Brien’s application, the poll body submitted that the numbers relied upon include removals of names in the “Absentee, Shifted, Dead and Duplicate” (ASDD) categories, which, it said, were not adjudicated by Judicial Officers and cannot be equated with deletions made after such adjudication. These are the contentions of the ECI in a pending matter; the underlying dispute is yet to be decided by the Court.
The ECI’s core objection
According to the affidavit, O’Brien’s figures included names removed as ASDD entries from the draft roll, which, the Commission said, were deleted only after due process and verification as contemplated under the SIR Order, and such removals of “ineligible entries” could not be equated with adjudicated deletions by Judicial Officers. The ECI stated that notices were issued only in cases where an elector’s name appeared in the draft rolls and was referred for adjudication, and that no notices were issued in ASDD cases, which were never placed before Judicial Officers.
Characterising the applicant’s approach as misleading, the ECI submitted:
“The attempt of the Applicant to portray all deletions as ‘effective disenfranchisement’ is wholly incorrect and misleading. Even more troubling is the false projection that appeals against all such deletions were pending before the Learned Judicial Officers. The correct factual position is that notices were issued only in respect of those electors whose names appeared in the draft rolls and whose cases were referred for adjudication.”
Once the ASDD removals are excluded, the Commission argued, the applicant’s own data shows that in many constituencies the number of adjudicated deletions was lower than the margin of defeat. As a sample, it cited four seats where the losing margin exceeded the deletions made under adjudication:
| District | Assembly Constituency | Status | Margin (Win/Loss) | Cases deleted under adjudication |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coochbehar | Dinhata | Loss | -17,447 | 17,274 |
| Murshidabad | Khargram (SC) | Loss | -9,333 | 4,258 |
| Howrah | Bally | Loss | -11,997 | 11,386 |
| Howrah | Howrah Uttar | Loss | -11,250 | 11,179 |
These figures, the affidavit said, undermine the theory that the adjudication exercise altered the electoral outcome.
The ECI turns the test around: 21 seats the AITC won
The Commission also relied on the other side of the same data. According to the ECI, in 21 constituencies won by the AITC, the number of adjudicated deletions exceeded the margin of victory; therefore, it argued, if the test proposed by O’Brien were applied consistently, the results in those seats would equally have to be questioned. The 21 seats cited by the Commission are:
| Sitai (SC) | Kumarganj | Harirampur |
| Ratua | Mothabari | Samserganj |
| Suti | Raghunathganj | Lalgola |
| Palashipara | Kaliganj | Amdanga |
| Kamarhati | Madhyamgram | Patharpratima |
| Raidighi | Mandirbazar (SC) | Howrah Dakshin |
| Kharagpur | Khandaghosh (SC) | Bardhaman Uttar (SC) |
By way of illustration, the ECI stated that in Sitai (SC) the victory margin was 2,721 votes against 20,213 adjudicated deletions; in Samserganj, 7,587 votes against 74,775; and in Lalgola, 18,960 votes against 55,420. On that basis, the Commission characterised the selective application of the margin-versus-deletion test as an inconsistent foundation for seeking to invalidate results.
‘An election cannot be challenged over an electoral-roll defect’
In its preliminary submissions, the Commission invoked Article 329(b) of the Constitution, under which an election to Parliament or a State Legislature can be called into question only through an election petition presented in the manner prescribed by law. Relying on Supreme Court precedent on challenges to elections and electoral rolls, the ECI submitted that settled law recognises that an election cannot be called into question on the basis of a defect in the electoral roll, and that any such challenge must be pursued through an election petition under the Representation of the People Act, 1951.
The affidavit also noted that election petitions have already been filed in respect of two of the constituencies covered by the application, namely Pandabeswar and Rajarhat New Town. The ECI’s reply was filed in response to O’Brien’s application seeking, among other reliefs, a declaration setting aside the results in 31 West Bengal Assembly constituencies and fresh polling on the basis of the revised final electoral rolls. While hearing the application last month, the Supreme Court had asked whether it could direct fresh elections.
Why it matters
The exchange goes to the heart of a politically charged, and legally significant, question thrown up by the SIR across several States: what evidentiary weight, if any, attaches to a comparison between the number of names deleted from the rolls and a candidate’s margin of defeat, and whether such a comparison can be a basis to unsettle a declared result. The ECI’s central contention, that only deletions actually adjudicated by Judicial Officers are comparable to the margin, and that removals of absentee, shifted, dead or duplicate entries are a routine, verification-based clean-up of the rolls, seeks to draw a line between the ordinary maintenance of electoral rolls and the contested adjudication of individual objections.
Equally, the Commission’s reliance on Article 329(b) and the election-petition route reflects a long line of authority that insulates declared election results from collateral challenge, requiring grievances about the conduct of an election, including about the rolls, to be tested through the dedicated statutory mechanism rather than by writ. These are, at this stage, the competing contentions of the parties in a pending matter; the correctness of the rival figures, and whether any relief is warranted, are questions for the Supreme Court, which has already flagged the difficulty of the relief sought by asking whether it could order fresh elections at all. Nothing has been decided.
Case Title: Derek O’Brien v. Election Commission of India [IA No. 171298/2026 in WP(C) No. 737/2025]
Forum: Supreme Court of India
Status: ECI affidavit filed; matter pending
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