New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday (October 26) issued a notice to the Election Commission of India (ECI) on a writ petition challenging the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Maharashtra but didn’t grant any immediate relief.A bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice V. Mohana declined to pass interim order without hearing the poll body on whether to push back the deadline for claims and objections or to stop the ECI from releasing the final voters’ list. The case will be heard next on November 5, Live Law reported.Appearing for petitioner Arun Anandagiri, senior advocate Arvind P. Datar told the apex court that roughly 3 crore of the state’s 9 crore voters, about a third, have been dropped since the draft rolls came out. Of these, 1.22 crore were removed citing “logical discrepancy,” he said.Datar argued that the ECI is asking such voters to file Form 6 and register afresh. That form, he said, is meant for first-time voters, and someone who has voted in the past cannot be made to use it. He also argued that making a deleted voter file Form 6 could expose them to an offence, because the applicant must declare that they have never voted before.Also read: Maharashtra SIR: List of 1.22 Crore People Under ‘Unmapped’, ‘Logical Discrepancies’ Categories Yet to Be PublishedDatar noted that the Delhi high court had recently said deleted voters who file the form would not be prosecuted adding that it did not solve the problem. “Delhi high court says don’t worry, they will not take prosecution. But that is not an answer,” Datar was quoted as saying by Live Law.“Nobody will be prosecuted,” CJI Kant said.Datar responded that a separate form should be created for deleted voters, since using Form 6 might amount to a false declaration.In an October 14 order, a bench of Delhi high court justices Dinesh Mehta and Aditi Chaudhary dismissed a petition filed by two voters, whose names were deleted from the electoral rolls after they could not complete the enumeration process during the SIR of electoral rolls in Delhi, calling their apprehension of being accused of making a false declaration while submitting Form 6 as “misplaced”.Further, Datar asked the court to direct the ECI not to finalise the list, which is due on November 16, pointing out that Maharashtra has no election coming up soon and that bringing back 3 crore voters would take time.“In Pune and Bombay, 40% voters are not there,” Datar submitted, as per Live Law.In these cities, he said, many residents had been moved out because of redevelopment projects, and a large number of them were struck off on the ground of “person not found”.The bench was unwilling to pass an order without hearing the ECI as Datar also sought an extension of the claims and objections window, which closes today.At present there are 59.75 lakh unmapped people in Maharashtra while 62.48 lakh people have been flagged for logical discrepancies in the state, taking their collective figure to a massive 1.22 crore voters.For our full coverage on the SIR and the issues it has brought to citizens, click here.