Overview
- The Supreme Court ruled on Friday that removal from the electoral roll does not by itself strip a person of citizenship or entitlement to welfare benefits and asked appellate tribunals to speed up resolution of outstanding appeals.
- The Election Commission has extended Special Intensive Revision (SIR) house-to-house enumeration deadlines to early–mid August, giving states such as Maharashtra and Delhi until August 8 to finish verification and digitisation.
- Digitisation is uneven: Delhi has digitised roughly 21% of enumeration forms with door-to-door distribution nearly complete, while Maharashtra shows about 35% overall digitisation and large urban districts lag far behind.
- West Bengal remains the sharpest flashpoint, with petitioners saying roughly 34 lakh appeals are pending before 19 tribunals and alleging state orders have denied PDS and other welfare benefits to many deleted electors.
- To shore up credibility and speed processing, the Election Commission launched a national media outreach and a digital platform called ECINET to centralise services, enable online form filing and help Booth Level Officers manage uploads.