Neither approved nor disapproved, Supreme Court clarifies stance on Form 6 alterations

The Supreme Court on Monday (October 12, 2026) clarified that it had neither approved nor disapproved the controversial alterations made to Form 6 in its May 27 judgment, which was entirely about the legality of the pilot Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process in Bihar.

The Court said the May 27 ruling pre-dated the changes made to Form 6.

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The changes and modified declarations, which required applicants to provide ancestry details or linkage to previous SIR rolls on the ECINet portal, were introduced subsequently in July.

“When the Bihar SIR issue was heard and decided, the new Form 6 was not there. The new Form 6 was neither approved nor disapproved by us. But we will examine it now,” Justice Joymalya Bagchi, who is part of the Bench headed by Chief Justice Surya Kant, observed orally.

The remarks came in response to a petition filed by Priya Mishra against the Union government challenging the alterations made to Form 6 to register new voters during the SIR exercises undertaken across multiple States.

The counsel for the petitioner recounted the Chief Justice of India’s oral remark on October 5. The lawyer said that the CJI had commented that alterations in Form 6 were “not approved by us”. He said that despite the CJI’s remarks, the Election Commission has continued to justify the changes to Form 6, claiming the court has approved them.

The May 27 judgment on the Bihar SIR had observed that Form 6 was a guide to the SIR verification process. The apex court said that the Form 6 used in Bihar SIR “set out a framework of documentation”.

“It is neither practicable nor desirable for the verification process to be left entirely unguided or subjective. It is true that Form 6, as prescribed under the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960, sets out a framework of documentation; however, the same is tailored to the process of revision contemplated under Section 21(2) of the Representation of the People Act,” the May 27 judgment authored by Chief Justice Kant had observed.

On October 5, during the hearing of petitions challenging the SIR process, the CJI had sharply reacted to submissions about the July alterations in the Form 6. “We are making it clear, any modifications to Form 6 have not been made by us,” the Chief Justice had said.

Form 6 is a statutory document provided in the Schedule of the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960. Modifications to Form 6 should be done through the proper lawmaking process, and not by unilateral administrative actions.

The alterations in Form 6 included a supplementary declaration form on additional linkage requirements for voter registration. New applicants have to declare whether they, their parents, or their grandparents were registered in the previous SIR electoral rolls. Further, a response to these mapping and linkage questions was made a strict prerequisite for submitting Form 6 applications.