Goa’s 97 Voters Dropped by ECINet Software Revive the Case for Making Voting a Fundamental Right

The news

New Delhi. The Hindu’s ‘Letter & Spirit’ page on Monday, September 28, asks whether the ‘right to vote’ should be raised from a statutory right to a fundamental one. Earlier cards (September 23–26) covered the internal dissent in the Election Commission (EC); what is new today is the doctrinal argument and the software. The author, New Delhi lawyer Kartikey Singh, builds on an Indian Express report of September 23 that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi recorded 14 objections over 10 months against Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar. The same report found that 97 eligible voters in Goa were dropped from the rolls because the centralised ECINet software denied Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) — the officers who prepare and revise each constituency’s roll — the authority to reverse erroneous deletions. The EROs reportedly flagged the anomalies to the Commission by email, but the names were not restored. The harm goes beyond the ballot: the Goa Mediclaim Scheme, which pays for dialysis, angioplasty, open-heart surgery, transplants, chemotherapy and cochlear implants, is available only to State voters. Singh recalls that Kuldip Nayar v. Union of India (2006) held the ‘right to elect’ statutory under Section 62 of the Representation of the People Act (RPA), 1951, and that in Anoop Baranwal (2023) Justice Ajay Rastogi dissented, linking it to Articles 19(1)(a) and 21. Courts, he notes, have forgiven roll errors unless they “materially affected” a result; Goa is instead “a systemic failure baked into the software’s design”. On Saturday the EC promised agendas before meetings, minutes afterwards, its approval for officers’ foreign trips, a “special drive” by EROs, a review of ECINet and visits by booth-level officers to electors who got notices. Congress’s Jairam Ramesh called this “damage control”, said a review of the software’s legal compliance admitted doubt about its legality, and said nearly 14 crore deleted voters were being asked to apply afresh; CPI(M) MP John Brittas asked how a mandatory declaration could be added to Form 6 through an online portal without amending the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960. Over 2,000 citizens have asked Chief Justice Surya Kant for suo motu proceedings and an independent ECINet audit. The Hindu’s editorial puts removals from draft rolls at over 13 crore and seeks an EC chosen by a panel without a government majority; The Economic Times says the 2026-27 Summary Special Revision, the annual roll update followed since 1958, missed its May-June window, stalling enrolment of new 18-year-olds. The syllabus link is GS2: the Representation of People’s Act, constitutional bodies and fundamental rights.

Static syllabus linkage

1. Article 326 guarantees adult suffrage, but the machinery is statutory. Article 326 provides that elections to the Lok Sabha and State Assemblies shall be on the basis of adult suffrage, so every citizen of the qualifying age who is not disqualified under the Constitution or a law on grounds such as non-residence, unsoundness of mind, crime or corrupt practice is entitled to be registered. The voting age was lowered from 21 to 18 by the Sixty-first Amendment Act, 1988. Article 325 bars exclusion from a roll on grounds only of religion, race, caste or sex, and requires one general roll for each constituency. Articles 327 and 328 let Parliament and State legislatures make laws on elections, including the preparation of rolls. The constitutional promise is therefore complete only when read with the RPA.
2. The RPA 1950 governs the roll; the RPA 1951 governs the vote. The Representation of the People Act, 1950 provides for Chief Electoral Officers and EROs, sets the conditions of registration (Section 19: age 18 and ‘ordinarily resident’ in the constituency), and lets the ERO prepare and revise the roll (Section 21). Section 22 allows the ERO to correct or delete an entry, but a deletion must follow a reasonable opportunity of being heard, and Section 24 provides appeals. Since the Election Laws (Amendment) Act, 2021 a person can enrol on any of four qualifying dates a year — January 1, April 1, July 1 and October 1. The RPA 1951 regulates the conduct of elections; its Section 62 says every person on the roll is entitled to vote unless disqualified. The Registration of Electors Rules, 1960 prescribe Form 6 for inclusion, Form 7 for objection or deletion and Form 8 for correction.
3. The Supreme Court has never settled the nature of the right cleanly. In PUCL v. Union of India (2003) the Court treated the right to vote as statutory but held that the voter’s freedom of expression in casting the vote is part of Article 19(1)(a), which grounded the right to know candidates’ antecedents. Kuldip Nayar v. Union of India (2006), a five-judge Bench upholding open ballot in Rajya Sabha polls, called the rights to vote and contest ‘pure and simple’ statutory rights. In PUCL v. Union of India (2013) the Court directed the ‘None of the Above’ (NOTA) option, again tying the act of voting to free expression. Rajbala v. State of Haryana (2015) described it as a constitutional right, but a smaller Bench cannot override a larger one, so Kuldip Nayar prevails.
4. Article 324 gives the EC superintendence, and courts read it as a reserve of power. Article 324 vests the superintendence, direction and control of the preparation of electoral rolls and the conduct of elections in the Election Commission. In Mohinder Singh Gill v. Chief Election Commissioner (1978) the Court described this as a reservoir of power to act where the law is silent, but not against the law. Article 329(b) bars challenges to an election except by an election petition. The Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners (Appointment, Conditions of Service and Term of Office) Act, 2023 governs appointments and, as The Hindu’s writer notes, the Commission’s transaction of business, with a majority deciding where members differ.

Why UPSC loves this

1. GS2 asks about the EC’s independence and the integrity of rolls every few years. The syllabus names the ‘Representation of People’s Act’ and ‘appointment to various constitutional posts, powers, functions and responsibilities of various constitutional bodies’. Mains has asked about the EC’s role in free and fair elections and about simultaneous elections. The present episode adds a new dimension — accountability of an algorithm — which is exactly the kind of fresh case examiners like to attach to an old topic.
2. Prelims tests the source of rights and who does what on the roll. Prelims regularly asks whether a right is fundamental, constitutional or statutory (voting, property, contesting elections), which Article provides adult suffrage, and which officer or Act governs the roll. Expect statements testing that the ERO, not the EC’s headquarters, is the statutory authority for correction under the RPA 1950, and that Section 62 of the RPA 1951 is the source of the right to vote.

Analysis

1. The Goa case shows that code can overrule statute without anyone amending it. The RPA 1950 places the power and duty to correct the roll on the ERO, a named statutory officer, and requires a hearing before deletion. If ECINet is built so that only a central user can reverse a deletion, the software has redistributed a statutory power without Parliament’s consent. That is a legal problem, not just a technical one, because the officer the law holds accountable is left powerless. Mr. Brittas’s question about adding a declaration to Form 6 through the online portal raises the same issue from the other side: a form prescribed by rules is being changed by a web page. The EC’s promise to review ECINet’s ‘compliance with existing laws’ is a quiet admission that design decisions now need legal audit before they go live.
2. Fundamental-right status would change the standard of review more than the outcome. The practical difference between a statutory and a fundamental right is the test a court applies. A statutory right can be regulated by any law within legislative competence; a fundamental right can be restricted only on stated grounds and must pass proportionality review, as the Court has applied since Puttaswamy (2017). Under that standard, a centralised deletion system would have to show a legitimate aim, a rational connection, the absence of a less restrictive option and a fair balance — and an option that let EROs correct errors plainly existed. The counter-view is that voting already enjoys strong protection through Articles 325 and 326 and the basic-structure status of free and fair elections, so relabelling it adds little. Both sides agree the ‘substantial versus isolated error’ test is inadequate when the error is systemic by design.
3. A constitutional amendment is not the only route; a larger Bench is a cheaper one. Moving voting into Part III by amendment is politically improbable and would take years. A seven-judge Bench revisiting Kuldip Nayar, as the Hindu writer suggests, could hold that the right flows from Article 326 read with Article 19(1)(a), building on PUCL (2003 and 2013) and the Rastogi dissent. That would not stop the EC from purging rolls, but it would require every purge method, including software, to meet a demanding test. The risk is that courts become roll managers, which is why any such ruling should set standards — notice, hearing, a reasoned order, a restoration route — rather than supervise individual deletions.
4. The Mediclaim link shows how the roll has become an identity register. When State welfare schemes use the electoral roll to prove residence, a wrongful deletion also cuts off healthcare. This is a governance drift: the roll was designed to count voters, not to decide entitlements. Linking the two means an error in one system cascades into another, and the citizen must fight two bureaucracies. States should use independent residence proof for schemes, and the EC should treat deletions as having consequences beyond polling day.
5. The first-time-voter lapse is the quieter but wider harm. The Economic Times’s point is that while attention has gone to deletions, the annual Summary Special Revision that brings in new 18-year-olds was not announced for 2026-27. Four qualifying dates were meant to let young people enrol throughout the year; a stalled revision defeats that reform. Mr. Ramesh claims the annual revision has been frozen since 2024, which the EC has not answered in the papers. Exclusion by omission is harder to see than exclusion by deletion, but for a young electorate it may affect more people.

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