60% notice cases verified in Delhi; disposal gains pace amid reduced scrutiny, norms

The sudden spike in the rate of notice disposal follows the introduction of new options on the ECINET portal and fresh oral directions from Gyanesh Kumar's office to expedite the process and prevent wrongful deletions

Election officials have verified about 60% or nearly 20 lakh of the 33 lakh electors who were served notices in Delhi under the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls for logical discrepancies or for not being mapped in the 2002 rolls and cleared their names for inclusion in the final roll , the office of Delhi's Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) stated on Monday (October 12, 2026).

As many as 19 lakh of these cases were cleared in the past two weeks alone.

The sudden spike in the rate of notice disposal follows the introduction of new options on the Election Commission of India's (ECI) ECINET portal and fresh oral directions from Gyanesh Kumar's office to expedite the process and prevent wrongful deletions. The changes were introduced between September 30 and October 2.

These electors are included in the draft electoral roll published on August 31, which carries 97.5 lakh names, but their eligibility for inclusion in the final electoral roll is subject to additional scrutiny.

The last date for disposing of these notices is November 30, with the final roll scheduled to be published on December 4.

Spike in disposal

The pace of disposals has not been consistent. While the notice phase started on August 31, only about 96,000 cases were parked for the final roll nearly a month later, by September 26, according to progress data seen by The Hindu.

While the Delhi CEO has not shared the constituency-wise status of notice disposal during this period, it first mentioned in a press release on October 5 that over 10 lakh notices have been verified. Now, a week later, it says, "By now around 20 lakh cases out of 33 lakh have been resolved."

"If any person has any grievance, please feel free to contact any of the 14,947 BLOs, 902 AEROs, 70 EROs, 13 DEOs or the CEO," the release stated.

Even though the last date to dispose of notices is November 30, the officers have been told to prioritise disposals and clear all cases in the following week.

Unlike other States' CEOs, such as Karnataka and Jharkhand, the Delhi CEO has not shared the progress with constituency-wise data on status of notices.

The initial report accessed by The Hindu had also showed that 350 electors were marked "found ineligible".

This was discouraged by the Delhi CEO strictly warning through a letter on September 25 that no deletions should be "flimsy grounds" and thorough verification should be followed.

What changed

It seems that the focus has shifted from proving the person has 2002 linkage, or "citizenship proof" based on 11 documents prescribed by ECI to simply ascertaining that the eligibility conditions meet, as per multiple poll officials.

"Neither mapping nor logical discrepancies affect a voter's eligibility, which is to be an Indian citizen over 18 years of age and residing in the constituency. Whether they were able to link themselves or have some set of documents doesn't interfere with the right to vote. A BLO can verify if the person stays somewhere, and it is evident if they are over 18 years of age," said a senior official.

The same clarity was not there a month back, EROs who had earlier received strict instructions to rely on documents, said.

Booth level officers (BLOs) said norms over documents were relaxed, with instructions to collect whatever paper is available with the voter and submit their undertaking along with it.

"BLOs were also informed in a meeting held on October 1 that our undertaking that we have been submitting along with documents collected from the voters will now work alone in cases a voter served notice doesn't have prescribed documents," a BLO trainer from south east Delhi told The Hindu.

In the notice phase, BLO submits their undertaking that the verification has been completed and the elector is found eligible to be further approved by ERO.

As soon as new options came in allowing EROs to mark an elector as eligible without requiring documents or a hearing while disposing of a notice, by uploading a "hearing order" , some disposed more notices more than those distributed.

"I disposed of all the logical discrepancy cases in my constituency. It became higher than the number of notices distributed by BLO," an ERO said.

Such cases unfolded in different constituencies, resulting in BLOs and voters unaware of notices cases already been cleared.

The Hindu has learnt that the Delhi CEO has written to the ECI, requesting a feature on the ECINET portal through which a voter can see the status of their notice.

Scrutiny reduced

Even as people continue visiting hearing centres in some parts of Delhi even as BLOs have been asked to collect documents from voter's home, no one is being turned away over documents with the level of scrutiny relaxed since initial days.

At one such a centre in Chandni Chowk, voters were asked to send a scanned copy of one document and notice over WhatsApp. "The process of photo attendance has also been done away it," an official said.

Earlier, officials were also insisting on 2002 SIR list extract with which voters had mapped themselves.

That was not needed any more.

Haroon Khan, who had received notice for a name mismatch, said, "My BLO told me it is fake news that the BLO has to collect documents from home. She told me I would have to go to the hearing centre, so I took a half day to come here. Now they don't want hard copy of documents, only scanned copy."

This is the same centre where a 63-year-old woman, Sanichari Devi, had to make three rounds to a photocopy store and her house before submitting those documents in early September, where a hard copy was a must and certain document proofs were non-negotiable.