Telangana CEO Warns Voters of Legal Action for Fake SIR Documents

HYDERABAD — Electors submitting false, forged, or misleading documents and declarations during personal hearings for the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls will face legal action, the Telangana Chief Electoral Office warned on Wednesday.

The Telangana Chief Electoral Office (CEO) stated that it will independently verify all documents submitted by voters in support of declarations made during hearings. Officials noted that providing false information to a public servant is a criminal offence under Section 217 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and is punishable under the law.

According to the CEO, appropriate proceedings will be initiated against individuals if any document or declaration is found to be fabricated, false, misleading, or intentionally incorrect. In addition to provisions under the BNS, furnishing a false declaration regarding the preparation, revision, correction, inclusion, or exclusion of entries in electoral rolls is punishable with imprisonment, a fine, or both under Section 31 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950.

Across Telangana, election authorities have served more than 2 lakh notices to voters who had anomalies in their submissions or were unable to map themselves to the SIR 2002 list.

Scrutiny of submitted enumeration forms revealed anomalies among 60,50,918 voters. These discrepancies included mismatches in names and incorrect ages when compared to previous revision data. Additionally, 32,36,659 electors could not link themselves to the SIR 2002 records.

In notices served to unmapped electors in Hyderabad and other districts, the CEO informed individuals that scrutiny showed missing details needed to establish whether they or their relatives were registered electors during the previous SIR. Citing issues such as 'no match' or 'likely incorrect match' with older electoral records, officials have directed affected individuals to appear before their respective Electoral Registration Offices with original supporting documents for verification.