Telangana High Court Rejects Plea For Restoration Of Deleted Voter Names, Directs Petitioner To Avail SIR Process

The Telangana High Court has asked a family to participate in the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process in the State over their grievance on deletion of their names from the electoral rolls.[2026 LiveLaw (Tel) 96]

A division bench of Chief Justice Aparesh Kumar Singh and Justice GM Mohiuddin noted that the SIR process provides for a forum and procedure for inclusion of electors whose names have been deleted from the rolls.

It therefore dismissed the family's plea seeking a direction to ECI to implement the procedure for grievance redressal regarding wrongful deletion of names from the electoral roll and for restoration of such names along with their original EPIC (Voter ID) numbers and electoral records.

The Court observed that as per the facts it was clear petitioner had approached the court after two years of the alleged deletion of his name and the names of his family members from the electoral rolls, when his representations made from time to time have not been acted upon.

However, the court said, that it was also evident that at this stage, the ECI has itself initiated the SIR to ensure that no eligible voter is left out of the electoral rolls. The court noted that the qualifying date would be 01.01.2003 for those existing electors.

For those who have become eligible thereafter also, the exercise contemplates submission of enumeration form to BLOs during house-to-house enumeration exercise. The period for such enumeration exercise is from June 25 to July 24, the court said.

Further, it said, that the SIR process includes publication of draft rolls after house-to-house enumeration, submission of claims and objections and a time period for submission of claims and objections which would also get displayed. The SIR process also provides for appeal and second appeal to the competent authority the court noted. It thus said:

"Therefore, since the SIR process has been initiated by the Election Commission of India in exercise of its powers under Article 324 of the Constitution of India read with the relevant provisions of the (Representation of the People) Act which provides for not only the forum, but also the procedure for correction of the electoral rolls in cases of electors whose names have either got deleted or have become eligible to be included in the electoral rolls, this court should refrain from exercising its writ jurisdiction in the matter. Therefore, the petitioner is at liberty to participate in the process of SIR in respect of his grievances relating to deletion of his name and the names of his family members from the electoral rolls earlier. This court, therefore, is not inclined to interfere in the instant writ petition".

The petitioner contended that his name was included in the last SIR conducted in 2002 for Assembly Constituency of Charminar. However, the electoral roll reflected errors in certain particulars.

To rectify the mistakes the petitioner and his family members submitted a notice to the Electoral Registration Officer, Bahadurpura, and the Booth Level Officer (BLO) on 12.05.2024 requesting them to furnish reasons and grounds for deletion of their names from the electoral rolls, the other particulars about the name and designation of the officer responsible, whether any field-level enquiry was conducted prior to deletion of their names from the electoral rolls and the method adopted for such deletion and the copies of notices, enquiry notes etc. However no response was received. 

Representations were submitted on 14.11.2025 and 01.04.2026, however, till date, no response has been received. The petitioner's counsel referred to ECI's press note dated 14.05.2026 announcing the schedule for SIR – Phase III to be conducted in phased manner in 16 States and 3 Union Territories, including Telangana.

It was submitted that in the absence of restoration of the name of the petitioner and his family members in the current electoral rolls, proper identification and mapping of records during SIR – 2026 process may not be possible which may adversely affect their inclusion in the revised electoral rolls, thereby depriving them from voting in the election.

The ECI submitted that the SIR process in the State is now underway wherein the petitioner has a remedy for redressal of his grievances. 

The petition was dismissed. 

Case title: Syed Qutubuddin Masood v/s The Election Commission of India

WRIT PETITION No.20188 of 2026 

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Citation: 2026 LiveLaw (Tel) 96