New Delhi, Oct. 12: The Supreme Court has clarified that it neither approved nor rejected the changes made to Form 6 for voter registration. The court said its May 27 judgment concerned the legality of the pilot Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process in Bihar.
The revised Form 6 declarations were introduced in July. They require new applicants to provide ancestry details or establish links to previous SIR electoral rolls through the ECINet portal.
“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 observed orally.
Justice Bagchi was part of the Bench headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant. The remarks came during a hearing on a petition filed by Priya Mishra challenging the changes introduced by the Union government.
Supreme Court to Examine New Form 6 Requirements
The petitioner’s counsel referred to the CJI’s remarks on October 5, when he clarified that the court had not made the changes to Form 6. The lawyer argued that the Election Commission continued to justify the alterations by claiming the court had approved them.
In its May 27 judgment on Bihar’s SIR process, the Supreme Court discussed Form 6 as a framework for documentation during verification. However, the revised version introduced in July was not part of that judgment.
The court had observed that the verification process required clear guidelines rather than entirely subjective decisions. It also noted that Form 6, prescribed under the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960, provided a documentation framework for electoral roll revisions under the Representation of the People Act.
Form 6 is a statutory document used to apply for voter registration. The July changes added supplementary declarations requiring applicants to state whether they, their parents or grandparents appeared on previous SIR electoral rolls.
The revised process also made responses to these mapping and linkage questions mandatory for submitting applications. The petition challenges these requirements, and the Supreme Court has indicated that it will examine the changes.
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