New Delhi: The Bombay high court on Tuesday (October 6) adjourned a hearing on a petition filed by a Goa family that had been removed from the electoral rolls during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise, despite having submitted form 8 to alert the state of their address change. The court deferred the hearing after the Election Commission of India (ECI) pointed out that the Supreme Court was currently hearing petitions challenging the SIR.As per a Hindu report, advocate Gaurish Agni, who was representing the ECI, contended, “The orders the Supreme Court may pass can have a bearing on the matter before the high court.” In response, Justices Valmiki Menezes and Amit Jamsandekar scheduled the case’s next hearing for October 13.The ECI’s failure to update the electoral status of six members of a family from Goa’s Santa Cruz constituency during the enumeration phase, owing to shortcomings in its software, had previously drawn the Bombay high court’s ire with the bench reprimanding the commission for its poor handling of the SIR and deletion of names without a hearing.On Tuesday, Agni told the Hindu that “the Supreme Court has issued directions in some SIR cases pending before it that wherever there is a challenge to the SIR and deletion of names, if a petition is presented before a high court, ideally the hearing should be deferred.”“Similar orders have also been passed by the Sikkim, Uttarakhand and Kerala high courts,” he added.Agni argued that the apex court was presently dealing with cases related to SIR, including the issue of voters deletion, and that its orders may have “some bearing” on the high court’s decision. “The high court judges were of the view that the Supreme Court’s orders may not have a direct bearing on this matter, but the ECI requested that the hearing be adjourned for a week as the Supreme Court was likely to hear the petitions before it on October 8,” he said.Talking about the petition under the Bombay high court’s review, filed by Paresh Salgaonkar and his family, the lawyer said the case did not challenge the SIR, its guidelines or forms. It instead challenged the rejection of form 8, which is used to inform administrative authorities of an address change, by the ECI.Agni told reporters that the ECI’s argument before the court was that form 8 “could not be looked at in isolation” and must be read along with the procedure that takes place before its submission.For our full coverage on the SIR and the issues it has brought to citizens, click here.